THE  WITNESSES 

TO  THE 

HISTORICITY  OF  JESUS 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


DIE  DEUTSCHE  SPEKULATION  SEIT  KANT  mit  besonderer 
Riicksicht  auf  das  Wesen  des  Absoluten  und  die  Personlichkeit 
Gottes.  2  Bde.  G.  Fock,  Leipzig  ;  1893. 

RANTS  NATURPHILOSOPHIE  als  Grundlage  seines  Systems. 
Mitscher  u.  Rostell,  Berlin  ;  1894. 

DAS  ICH  als  Grundproblem  der  Metaphysik.  Eine  Einfiihrung 
in  die  spekulative  Philosophic.  I.  C.  B.  Mohr,  Freiburg  i.B.; 
1897. 

DER  IDEENGEHALT  VON  RICHARD  WAGNERS  'RING 
DES  NIBELUNGEN,  in  seinen  Beziehungen  zur  modernen 
Philosophic.  H.  Haacke,  Leipzig  ;  1898. 

SCHILLINGS  MUNCHENER  VORLESUNGEN  :  "  Zur  Ges- 
chichte  der  neueren  Philosophic"  und  "Darstellung  des  phil. 
Empirismus,"  neu  herausgegeben  und  mit  erlauternden  Anmer- 
kungen  versehen.  Diirr's  Verlag,  Leipzig  ;  1903. 

NIETZSCHES  PHILOSOPHIE.  Carl  Winters  Universitats- 
buchhandlung,  Heidelberg  ;  1904. 

HEGELS  RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHIE  in  gekiirzter  Form,  mit 
Einfiihrung,  Anmerkungen  u.  Erlauterungen  herausgegeben. 
Eugen  Diederichs  Verlag,  Jena ;  1905. 

DIE  RELIGION  ALS  SELBST-BEWUSSTSEIN  GOTTES. 
Eine  philosophische  Untersuchung  iiber  dac  Wesen  der  Religion. 
Eugen  Diederichs  Verlag,  Jena  ;  1905. 

EDUARD  v.  HARTMANNS  PHILOSOPHISCHE S  SYSTEM 
IM  GRUNDRISS.  Zweite  durch  einen  Nachtrag  vermehrte 
Ausgabe.  Carl  Winters  Universitatsbuchhandlung,  Heidelberg  ; 
1906. 

DAS  LEBENSWERK  EDUARD  VON  HARTMANNS.  Den 
deutschen  Studenten  der  Philosophie  gewidmet.  Th.  Thomas 
Verlag,  Leipzig ;  1907. 

PLOTIN  UND  DER  UNTERGANG  DER  ANTIKEN  WELT- 
ANSCHAUUNG. Eugen  Diederichs  Verlag,  Jena  ;  1907. 

DIE  CHRISTUSMYTHE.     Eugen  Diederichs  Verlag,  Jena  ;  1909. 

THE  CHRIST-MYTH.  Translated  from  the  Third  Edition 
(revised  and  enlarged)  by  C.  Delisle  Burns,  M.A.  T.  Fisher 
Unwin,  London  ;  1911. 

DIE  PHILOSOPHIE  IM  ERSTEN  DRITTEL  DES  NEUN- 
ZEHNTEN  JAHRHUNDERTS.  Geschichte  der  Philosophie. 
Bd.  VI.  Sammlung  Goschen,  Leipzig;  1912. 


THE  WITNESSES 


TO    THE 


HISTORICITY  OF  JESUS 


BY 

AKTHUK    DKEWS,  Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE   TECHN.   HOCHSCHULE,   KARLSRUHE 

(author  of  "The  Christ-Myth"  etc.) 


TEANSLATED  BY  JOSEPH  McCABE 


"  Woe  unto  you,  lawyers  !  for  ye  have  taken  away  the  key  of  knowledge  : 
ye  entered  not  in  yourselves,  and  them  that  were  entering  in  ye 
hindered."— LUKE  XI,  52. 


[ISSUED  FOR  THE  RATIONALIST^  PR-ESS  ASSOCIATION.  LIMJTKD] 


THE  OPEN  COUET  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 
G23-633  S.  WABASH  AVE.,  CHICAGO 


CONTENTS 


PACK 

PREFACE  ---.--..      ix 


THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES 

1.  PHILO  AND  JUSTUS  OF  TIBERIAS  -  2 

2.  JOSEPHUS      -  ....         3 

3.  THE  TALMUD  -       10 

THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES 

1.  PLINY  AND  SUETONIUS       -  18 

2.  TACITUS  -       20 

(a)  Evidential  Value  of  the  Passage  -        22 

(6)   Question  of  the  Genuineness  of  Annals,  xv.  44  -        24 

I.  Arguments  for  the  Genuineness         -  -         25 

II.  Arguments  against  the  Genuineness  -        37 

(a)  General  Observations        -  -         37 

(6)   The  Criticisms  of  Hochart  -         41 

(c)  Possibility  of  Various  Interpretations  of  Annals, 

xv,  44  49 

3.  "  LUCUS  A  NON  LUCENDO  "  56 

THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

1.  PROOFS  OF  THE  HISTORICITY  OF  JESUS  IN  PAUL  -       65 

(a)  Simple  Proofs     -  69 

(b)  The  Appearances  of  the  Risen  Christ     -  -         77 

(c)  The  Account  of  the  Last  Supper  -        80 

(d)  The  "  Brothers  "  of  the  Lord  84 
(c)   The  "  Words  of  the  Lord  "  -        91 

2.  PAUL  NO  WITNESS  TO  THE  HISTORICITY  OF  JESUS     -       98 

3.  THE  QUESTION  OF  GENUINENESS  -     102 

(a)  Emotional  Arguments  for  Genuineness  -  -       103 


vi  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

(6)   Arguments  for  Genuineness  from  the  Times     -  -       10G 

(c)   The  Spuriousness  of  the  Pauline  Epistles  -       116 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

1.  THE  SOURCES  OP  THE  GOSPELS  123 

2.  THE  WITNESS  OP  TRADITION  130 

3.  THE  METHODS  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM  -      134 

(a)  The  Methodical  Principles  of  Theological  History  -       134 

(b)  The  Methods  of  J.  Weiss  -       13G 

4.  THE  "UNIQUENESS"  AND  "  UNINVENTIBILITY "  OF 

THE  GOSPEL  PORTRAIT  OF  JESUS     -  -      142 

5.  SCHMIEDEL'S  "  MAIN  PILLARS  "    -  144 

6.  THE  METHODS  OF  "THE  CHRIST-MYTH"  -      156 

(a)  The  Literary  Character  of  the  Gospels  -  156 

(b)  The  Mythical  Character  of  the  Gospels  -  161 

7.  THE   MYTHIC-SYMBOLIC   INTERPRETATION  OF  THE 

GOSPELS  -  -      169 

(a)  The  Sufferings  and  Elevation  of  the  Messiah    -  -       169 

(b)  The  Character  and  Miracles  of  the  Messiah        -  -       174 

(c)  John  the  Baptist  and  the  Baptism  of  Jesus       -  -       183 

(d)  The  Name  of  the  Messiah  -       194 

(e)  The  Topography  of  the  Gospels  -  200 

I.  Nazareth         -  -       200 

II.  Jerusalem      -  -      205 

III.  Galilee  -      209 
(/)  The  Chronology  of  the  Gospels  -  212 
(g)  The  Pre-Christian  Jesus  -      216 
(h)  The  Transformation  of  the  Mythical  into  an  Historical 

Jesus  -  ....  228 

(i)  Jesus  and  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes  235 
(k)  Further  Modifications  of  Prophetical  and  Historical 

Passages                       -  -       245 

8.  HIST01UANS  AND  THE  GOSPELS      -               -               -  -        247 


CONTENTS  vii 

PACK 

9.  THE  WORDS  OF  THE  LORD  249 

(a)  The  Tradition  of  the  Words  of  the  Lord  249 

(6)  The  Controversies  with  the  Pharisees     -                          -  253 

(c)  Sayings  of  Jesus  on  the  Weak  and  Lowly                        -  258 

(d)  Jesus's  Belief  in  God  the  Father  262 
(c)   Love  of  Neighbours  and  of  Enemies      -                          -  266 
(/)  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount                                                 -  271 
(g)  Further  Parallel  Passages                                                 -  277 

10.  THE  PARABLES  OF  JESUS  280 

11.  GENERAL  RESULT  -  288 

12.  THE  "  STRONG  PERSONALITY  "    -  290 

13.  THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS  AND  THE  IDEAL  CHRIST      -  296 

14.  IDEA  AND  PERSONALITY  :  SETTLEMENT  OF  THE  RELI- 

GIOUS CRISIS      -  301 

APPENDIX                                                                           -  309 

INDEX     ........  817 


ERRATA 


Page  12,  fifth  line  of  first  footnote,  den  should  read  dem. 

Page  25,  fifth  line  from  end,  "in  my  opinion"  should  read  "in  his 
opinion." 

Page  27,  last  two  lines  of  text,  "  Von  der  Burgh,  Van  Eysing,"  should 
read  "  Van  den  Bergh  van  Eysinga." 


PREFACE 


THE  present  work  is  an  abbreviated  and  amended  version,  for 
English  readers,  of  the  volume  which  the  author  recently 
published  as  the  second  part  of  The  Christ-Myth  (English 
translation,  1910,  Fisher  Unwin).  The  author  described  this 
part  as  "an  answer  to  his  opponents,  with  special  reference 
to  theological  methods,"  and  dealt  in  the  early  part  of  it  with 
the  theological  critics  who  had  assailed  the  results  and  the 
methods  adopted  by  him.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  fault  of 
method  is  entirely  on  the  side  of  the  opponents,  and  that  theo- 
logians can  maintain  the  historical  reality  of  Jesus  on  methodical 
arguments  only  when  their  methods  are  pre-arranged  to  lead 
to  that  result.  It  is  not  the  author's  intention  wholly  to  omit 
the  points  of  this  controversy,  as  in  this  respect  there  is  no 
difference  between  the  theologians  of  Germany  and  those  of 
other  countries.  The  chief  aim  of  the  work,  however,  is 
to  collect,  examine,  and  refute  the  arguments  which  are 
advanced  on  the  theological  side  for  the  historicity  of  Jesus. 
In  spite  of  their  arrogant  behaviour,  the  German  theologians 
have  not  been  able  to  produce  one  single  decisive  reason  for 
the  historicity  of  Jesus.  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the 
English  authorities  can  adduce  better  proof  of  the  validity  of 
the  Christian  belief  than  their  German  colleagues  have  done. 
Besides  doing  this  necessary  critical  work,  it  is  hoped  that  the 
book  may  also  provide  a  better  explanation  of  the  rise  of  the 
Christian  religion  than  historical  theology,  as  it  is  called,  has 
yet  afforded.  In  this  respect  the  author  is  indebted  to  the  very 
stimulating  and  informing  works  of  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson 
(Christianity  and  Mythology, Pagan  Christs,  and  A  Short  History 


x  PKEFACE 

of  Christianity),  and  to  the  American  writer  Professor  W.  B. 
Smith,  whose  works,  Der  vorchristliche  Jesus  and  Ecce  Deus, 
ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  every  student  of  the  Christian 
religion. 

The  question  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus  is  a  purely  historical 
question,  and,  as  such,  it  must  be  settled  with  the  resources  of 
historical  research.  This  procedure  is,  however,  in  view  of  the 
close  connection  of  the  subject  with  emotional  and  religious 
elements,  not  inconsistent  with  the  fact  that  the  final  decision 
belongs  to  an  entirely  different  province,  that  of  philosophy, 
which  also  controls  subjective  feeling.  In  this  sense,  the 
question  whether  Jesus  was  an  historical  personage  coincides 
with  the  question  of  the  significance  of  personality  in  the 
general  order  of  the  world,  and  of  the  roots  and  motives  of  the 
inner  religious  life  generally. 

The  controversy  in  regard  to  the  Christ-myth  is  at  the 
same  time  a  struggle  for  the  freedom  and  independence  of  the 
modern  mind,  and  of  science  and  philosophy.  Let  there  be 
no  mistake  about  it :  as  long  as  the  belief  in  an  historical 
Jesus  survives  we  shall  not  succeed  in  throwing  off  the  yoke 
of  an  alleged  historical  fact  which  is  supposed  to  have  taken 
place  two  thousand  years  ago,  yet  has  profoundly  affected  the 
science  and  philosophy  of  Europe.  What  a  situation  it  is 
when  the  deepest  thoughts  of  the  modern  mind  must  be 
measured  by  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  and  referred  to  a  world 
of  ideas  that  has  nothing  to  recommend  it  but  the  antiquity 
of  its  traditions  and  the  artificially  engendered  appreciation  of 
everything  connected  with  it ! 

At  the  same  time  the  Christ-myth  controversy  is  a  struggle 
over  religion.  Religion  is  a  life  that  emanates  from  the 
depths  of  one's  innermost  self,  an  outgrowth  of  the  mind  and 
of  freedom.  All  religious  progress  consists  in  making  faith 
more  intimate,  in  transferring  the  centre  of  gravity  from  the 
objective  to  the  subjective  world,  by  a  confident  surrender  to 
the  God  within  us.  The  belief  in  an  historical  instrument  of 


PREFACE  xi 

salvation  is  a  purely  external  appreciation  of  objective  facts. 
To  seek  to  base  the  religious  life  on  it  is  not  to  regard  the 
essence  of  religion,  but  to  make  it  for  ever  dependent  on  a 
stage  of  mental  development  that  has  long  been  passed  in  the 
inner  life.  Those  who  cling  to  an  historical  Jesus  on  religious 
grounds  merely  show  that  they  have  never  understood  the 
real  nature  of  religion,  or  what  "  faith  "  really  means  in  the 
religious  sense  of  the  word.  They  see  only  the  interest  of 
their  Church,  which  assuredly  profits  by  a  confusion  of  true 
religious  faith,  of  a  trustful  surrender  to  the  God  within  us 
with  the  intellectual  acceptance  of  certain  facts  of  either  a 
dogmatic  or  an  historical  character ;  they  only  deceive  them- 
selves and  others  when  they  imagine  that  they  are  promoting 
the  interest  of  religion. 

Our  science  has  not  hitherto  suffered  the  indignity  of  being 
placed  after  theology  in  the  hierarchy  of  culture,  and  so 
being  compelled  to  justify  its  deepest  thoughts  and  achieve- 
ments from  the  theological  point  of  view,  or  concern  itself 
about  theology  at  all.  Our  philosophy,  however,  allows  faith 
to  be  set  above  knowledge,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  faith  is  born 
of  the  thirst  for  knowledge  and  consists  in  a  view  of  the  world  ; 
in  this  way  theology  comes  to  exercise  control  over  the  whole 
province  of  philosophical  knowledge.  A  philosophy  that  thus 
comes  to  terms  with  theology,  a  "  perfectly  safe  philosophy" 
which  seeks  to  live  in  peace  with  theology,  is  unworthy  of  the 
name.  For  it  is  not  the  work  of  philosophy  merely  to  prepare 
academic  theses,  and  deal  with  things  that  have  no  interest  for 
any  person  outside  the  lecture-hall  and  the  study :  its  greatest 
cultural  task  is  to  defend  the  rights  of  reason,  to  extend  its 
sway  over  every  province  of  knowledge,  and  to  rationalise 
faith.  In  the  words  of  Hegel,  its  task  is  "to  disturb  as  much 
as  possible  the  ant-like  zeal  of  the  theologians  who  use  critical 
methods  for  the  strengthening  of  their  Gothic  temple,  to  make 
their  work  as  difficult  as  possible,  to  drive  them  out  of  every 
refuge,  until  none  remains  and  they  must  show  themselves 


xii  PEEFACE 

openly  in  the  light  of  day."  It  is  from  no  accident,  but  in  the 
very  nature  of  things,  that  a  philosopher  thus  came  to 
denounce  the  truce  which  has  so  long  and  so  artificially 
been  maintained  with  theology,  and  sought  to  show  the 
untenability  of  its  central  belief  in  an  historical  Jesus. 

Meantime  we  may  reflect  with  comfort  on  the  words 
of  Dupuis :  "  There  are  large  numbers  of  men  so  perversely 
minded  that  they  will  believe  everything  except  what  is 
recommended  by  sound  intelligence  and  reason,  and  shrink 
from  philosophy  as  the  hydrophobic  shrinks  from  water. 
These  people  will  not  read  us,  and  do  not  concern  us ;  we 
have  not  written  for  them.  Their  mind  is  the  prey  of  the 
priests,  just  as  their  body  will  be  the  prey  of  the  worms.  We 
have  written  only  for  the  friends  of  humanity  and  reason. 
The  rest  belong  to  another  world ;  even  their  God  tells  them 
that  his  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world — that  is  to  say,  not  of 
the  world  in  which  people  use  their  judgment — and  that  the 
simple  are  blessed  because  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Let  us,  therefore,  leave  to  them  their  opinions,  and  not  envy 
the  priests  such  a  possession.  Let  us  pursue  our  way,  without 
lingering  to  count  the  number  of  the  credulous.  When  we 
have  unveiled  the  sanctuary  in  which  the  priest  shuts  himself, 
we  can  hardly  expect  that  he  will  press  his  followers  to  read 
us.  We  will  be  content  with  a  happy  revolution,  and  we  will 
see  that,  for  the  honour  of  reason,  it  is  so  complete  as  to 
prevent  the  clergy  from  doing  any  further  harm  to  mankind." 

ARTHUR  DREWS. 


THE  WITNESSES  TO  THE 

HISTORICITY  OF  JESUS 


THE  NON-CHKISTIAN  WITNESSES 

IN  view  of  the  vagueness,  effectiveness,  and  vulnerability 
of  the  evangelical  accounts  of  Jesus,  as  far  as  his  historical 
reality  is  concerned,  the  witnesses  in  non-Christian  litera- 
ture have  always  occupied  a  prominent  place  in  the 
question  of  his  historicity.  As  early  as  the  first  few 
centuries  of  the  present  era  pious  Christians  searched  the 
Jewish  and  pagan  writers  for  references  to  Jesus,  con- 
vinced that  such  references  ought  to  be  found  in  them ; 
they  regarded  with  great  concern  the  undeniable  defects 
of  tradition,  and,  in  the  interest  of  their  faith,  endeavoured 
to  supply  the  want  by  more  or  less  astute  "  pious  frauds," 
such  as  the  Acts  of  Pilate,  the  letter  of  Jesus  to  King 
Abgar  Ukkama  of  Edessa,1  the  letter  of  Pilate  to  Tiberius, 
and  similar  forgeries.  Greater  still  was  the  reliance  on 
the  few  passages  in  profane  literature  which  seemed  to 
afford  some  confirmation  of  the  historical  truth  of  the 
things  described  in  the  gospels.  As  these  so-called  non- 
Christian  witnesses  are  again  brought  forward  to  rebut 
the  denial  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus,  in  the  discussion 
which  has  followed  the  appearance  of  The  Christ  Myth, 
and  are  even  pressed  upon  us  as  decisive  testimony,  we 
must  make  a  comprehensive  inquiry  into  the  value  of 
those  references  in  profane  writers  which  seem  to  support 
the  belief  in  an  historical  Jesus. 

1  Eusebius,  Ecclesiastical  History,  I,  13. 

1 


THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES 


1.— PHILO  AND  JUSTUS  OF  TIBEEIAS. 

LET  us  begin  with  the  witnesses  in  Jewish  literature. 
Here  we  at  once  encounter  the  singular  circumstance 
that  Philo  (30  B.C.  to  50  A.D.)  makes  no  reference  to 
Christ.  Philo,  the  Alexandrian  philosopher  and  contem- 
porary of  Jesus,  was  by  no  means  a  secluded  scholar  who 
took  no  interest  in  the  fortunes  of  his  people.  As  envoy 
of  the  Alexandrian  Jews  to  Caligula,  he  pleaded  the 
interests  of  his  co-religionists  at  Rome,  and,  in  all 
probability,  himself  visited  the  land  of  his  fathers.  He 
even  in  one  place  makes  an  incidental  reference  to  Pilate, 
who  had  caused  an  agitation  among  the  Jews  at  Jerusalem 
by  some  offence  against  their  religious  ideas.1  We  are 
further  indebted  to  him  for  some  important  information 
on  the  Palestinian  sect  of  the  Essenes,  who  in  many 
respects  closely  resembled  the  Jessenes  and  Nazarenes,  as 
the  Christians  were  at  first  called.  His  own  views,  in 
fact,  have  so  unmistakable  an  affinity  with  those  of  the 
contemporary  Jewish-Gnostic  sects,2  and  some  of  these, 
such  as  the  Cainites,  are  so  fully  described  by  him3  that 
it  is  in  the  highest  degree  improbable  that  Philo  was 
unacquainted  with  the  Nazarenes,  on  the  supposition  that 
they  really  were  an  important  body  in  his  time,  and 
caused  as  serious  an  agitation  among  the  Jews  as  is 
commonly  believed. 

It  may  be  suggested  that  Philo  had  no  occasion  to 
speak  about  them. 

How  can  we  explain,  then,  that  the  Jewish  historian 

1  Schiirer,  Geschichte  des  Jiid.  Volkes,  4th  ed.  Ill,  p.  678,  etc. 

a  Gfrorer,  Philo  und  die  Jild.-Al.ex.  Theologie,  1835. 

8  M.  Friodlander,  Der  vorchristliche  Jild.  Qnostizismus,  1898,  p.  19,  etc. 

2 


THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES  3 

Justus  of  Tiberias,  another  contemporary  and  a  closer 
fellow-countryman  of  the  alleged  historical  Jesus — he 
lived  at  Tiberias,  not  far  from  Capernaum,  where  Jesus 
is  supposed  to  have  been  especially  active — is  also  silent 
about  them?  Justus  wrote  a  chronicle  of  the  Jewish 
kings  down  to  the  time  of  Agrippa  II.  The  original 
work  has  been  lost.  We  know  it  only  from  a  reference 
in  Photius,  a  patriarch  of  Constantinople  of  the  ninth 
century.  Photius  assures  us,  however,  that  he  read 
through  the  Chronicle  of  Justus  in  search  of  references 
to  Jesus,  and  found  none ;  he  attributes  it  to  "  the 
disease  "  —  that  is  to  say,  the  unbelief — of  the  Jews  that 
such  a  man  as  Justus  does  not  mention  the  appearance  of 
Christ,  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecies  by  him,  and  the 
miracles  he  wrought.  As,  however,  we  learn  from 
Photius  that  the  chronicle  was  merely  a  brief  treatment 
of  a  subject  that  had  no  direct  connection  with  the  life  of 
Jesus,  we  must  not  lay  too  much  stress  on  the  absence  of 
any  reference.  Still  the  fact  remains  that  Photius  himself 
believed  there  ought  to  be  some  mention  of  Jesus,  and  was 
surprised  to  find  none. 

2.— JOSEPHUS. 

We  have  next  to  see  how  we  stand  in  relation  to  the 
Jewish  historian  Flavius  Josephus  (37-100  A.D.),  the 
contemporary  and  political  opponent  of  Justus  of 
Tiberias.  He  is  the  first  profane  writer  who  can 
seriously  be  quoted  for  the  historicity  of  Jesus.  Josephus 
wrote  three  large  works — the  history  of  the  Jews,  the 
history  of  the  last  Jewish  war,  and  a  defence  of  the 
Jewish  religion.  In  these,  according  to  the  theological 
view,  he  cannot  have  had  any  occasion  to  deal  with  the 
appearance  of  Jesus,  an  episode  of  no  significance  in  the 
history  of  the  Jews,  or  with  Christianity.  At  the  time 
when  he  wrote  the  body  was  almost  extinct  as  a  Jewish 
sect,  and  in  any  case  of  no  consequence  whatever.  More- 
over, the  theologians  say,  it  would  have  been  very  difficult 


4  THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES 

for  him  to  deal  with  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  either 
side. 

But  Josephus  has  mentioned  much  less  important 
persons  who,  like  Jesus,  set  up  a  messianic  movement, 
and  suffered  death  for  it. 

Josephus  has  left  us  a  luminous  portrait  of  Pilate.  He 
depicts  him  in  all  his  brutality  and  unscrupulousness.1 
Can  we  suppose  that  he  refrained  from  telling  how,  in  the 
case  of  Jesus,  his  compatriots  forced  the  proud  Roman  to 
yield  to  them  ?  Or  did  he  know  nothing  of  any  such 
occurrence  ?  Is  it  possible  that  he  never  heard  of  the 
exciting  events  which,  as  the  gospels  relate,  occurred  in 
the  metropolis  of  Judaea — the  triumphant  entrance  of 
Jesus  into  Jerusalem,  while  the  people  acclaim  him  as 
the  expected  Messiah,  the  growing  anger  of  the  ruling 
parties,  the  taking  of  Jesus  by  night,  the  disturbance 
before  the  Governor's  house,  the  abandonment  of  one  of 
their  own  people  by  the  Sanhedrim  to  the  hated  Roman 
authorities,  the  disappearance  of  the  body  from  the  grave, 
etc.?  It  would  not  be  very  easy  to  show  that  Jesus  and 
his  affairs  would  seem  "  insignificant  "  to  Josephus  in 
writing  the  history  of  the  Jews,  and  that  the  sect  brought 
into  existence  by  him  would  seem  unworthy  of  mention. 
At  that  time  the  Christian  movement  is  supposed  to  have 
reached  a  prominent  place  in  public  life  and  attracted 
general  attention.  Can  it  be  called  an  insignificant  thing 
when  a  new  religious  sect  enters  into  such  rivalry  with 
the  old  religion,  from  which  it  has  sprung,  as  is  ascribed 
to  early  Christianity  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles?  and  this 
a  very  short  time  after  the  death  of  its  founder?  We 
have  only  to  recall  the  three  thousand  souls  who  are 
supposed  to  have  been  baptised  in  one  day  at  Jerusalem, 
in  the  very  heart  of  the  Jewish  cult !  It  is,  of  course, 
an  enormous  Christian  exaggeration;  but,  in  any  case, 
Christianity  must  have  made  great  progress  before  the 

1  Jewish  Antiquities,  xviii,  3,  i  and  2  ;  4,  i,  etc.  2  ii,  41. 


THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES  5 

destruction  of  Jerusalem,  if  we  are  to  put  any  faith 
whatever  in  the  account  of  its  early  years  given  in  the 
New  Testament. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  Josephus  concealed  the 
whole  messianic  movement  among  his  people  from  the 
Romans,  and  wished  to  represent  the  Jews  to  them  as 
extremely  harmless,  peaceful,  and  philosophical  citizens"; 
and  that  this  explains  his  remarkable  conduct.  In  other 
parts  of  his  works,  however,  Josephus  does  not  make  the 
least  difficulty  about  the  messianic  agitations  of  the  people 
of  Palestine.  In  the  Antiquities,1  for  instance,  he  gives 
the  episode  of  the  false  Messiah  who  induced  the  Samaritans 
to  go  up  with  him  to  the  holy  mountain  Gerizim,  where  he 
would  show  them  the  sacred  vessels  which  Moses  was 
supposed  to  have  buried  there,  and  thus  he  could  inflame 
them  to  rise  against  their  Roman  masters.  He  tells  of 
Judas  the  Gaulonite,  who  stirred  up  the  people  against 
the  census  of  Quirinius.2  He  also  relates  how  Theudas 
pretended  to  be  a  prophet  and  said  that  he  could  by  his 
sole  word  cause  the  waters  of  the  Jordan  to  divide,  and 
so  allow  those  who  followed  him  to  cross  over  in  safety.8 
Does  anyone  seriously  believe,  in  fact,  that  Josephus 
could  have  concealed  from  the  Romans,  who  had  long 
ruled  over  Palestine  and  were  most  accurately  informed 
as  to  the  disposition  of  their  subjects,  the  messianic 
expectations  and  agitations  of  his  compatriots,  and  repre- 
sented them  as  harmless,  in  works  which  were  especially 
concerned  with  their  strained  relations  to  their  oppressors  ? 
It  would  be  much  the  same  as  if  a  Pole,  writing  the 
history  of  his  country,  were,  in  order  to  avert  unkindly 
feeling  from  his  compatriots,  to  say  nothing  of  their 
dream  of  a  restoration  of  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Poland, 
and  represent  the  Poles  as  "  extremely  harmless,  peaceful, 
and  philosophical  citizens  " ! 

1  xviii,  4,  i. 

2  Antiquities,  xviii,  1,  i  ;  1,  6 ;  xx,  5,  2  ;  Jewish  War,  ii,  8,  i. 
8  Antiquities,  xx,  5,  i. 


6  THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  hardly  less  ridiculous  to  make 
any  such  tender  feeling  for  the  sensitiveness  of  Rome  the 
ground  for  the  remarkable  silence  of  Josephus,  as  Weinel 
and  many  other  theologians  do,  than  for  von  Soden,  another 
theologian,  to  declare  that  Josephus  would  have  been 
''embarrassed"  to  pass  judgment  on  the  Christians  and 
the  head  of  their  sect  from  either  side.1  What  sides 
does  he  mean  ?  From  the  Roman  side  ?  But  it  might 
be  a  matter  of  complete  indifference  to  them  what 
judgment  a  Josephus  would  pass  on  what  was — so  von 
Soden  would  have  us  believe — in  the  eyes  of  the  Jewish 
historian,  the  insignificant  sect  of  the  Christians  ?  Does 
he  mean  from  the  Jewish  side  ?  They  would  entirely 
agree  with  him  if  he  condemned  it.  Is  it  suggested  that 
he  had  a  favourable  opinion  of  the  Christians  ?  This  is, 
in  point  of  fact,  the  view  of  J.  Weiss,  and  it  harmonises 
very  well  with  the  predilection  of  Josephus  for  the 
Essenes.  It  seems  to  him  an  indication  of  "  a  friendly, 
or  at  least  impartial,  disposition  "  that  Josephus  does  not 
mention  the  Christians  and  their  founder.  He  therefore 
rejects  the  view,  put  forward  by  Julicher,  that  Josephus 
said  nothing  about  the  Christians  because  their  sect 
might  discredit  the  Jewish  faith.  According  to  Julicher, 
it  is  "  not  difficult  to  guess  "  why  Josephus  omitted  the 
Christian  sect  from  his  narrative  :  "  not  from  shame  and 
not  from  hatred,  but  because  he  could  not  very  well  at 
the  same  time  represent  the  Jews,  in  whom  he  was 
primarily  interested,  as  supporters  of  the  Roman  monarchy 
and  of  human  civilisation,  and  describe  the  Christians  (of 
the  first  century),  who  were  regarded  as  enemies  of  the 
whole  world,  as  an  outcome  of  his  pacific  Jews.  To  be 
silent  about  them  was  a  cleverer  tactic  than  vigorously  to 
shake  them  from  his  coat-tails"  (!).  It  is  remarkable 
what  astounding  things  these  theologians  will  say. 
Would  not  Josephus  have  done  better,  if  he  were  minded 

1  Hat  Jesus  gelebt  ?,  13. 


THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES  7 

as  Jiilicher  says,  to  have  separated  himself  as  widely  as 
possible  from  the  Christians?  "  In  the  same  way  as  he 
condemns  the  zealots,"  says  Weiss,  "who  were  responsible 
for  all  the  misfortunes  of  his  country,  he  would  have  had 
a  fitting  occasion  to  brand  the  fools  or  fanatics  who  had 
drawn  such  false  conclusions  from  the  sayings  of  the 
prophets ;  to  him  especially  the  Christians  must  have 
been  the  fittest  lightning-conductor."  According  to 
Weiss,  therefore,  the  silence  of  Josephus  is  "  no  sign  of 
hatred  of  the  Christians,  but  rather  the  reverse.  An 
enemy  of  the  Christians  would  certainly  have  drawn 
attention  to  them  in  order  to  relieve  Judaism  of  the 
charge  of  having  anything  to  do  with  the  sect."  "  His 
silence  is  all  the  more  puzzling"  (p.  90).  May  not  the 
simple  explanation  be  that  in  the  time  of  Josephus  the 
Christians  did  not  differ  sufficiently  from  official  Judaism 
to  require  special  mention  ?  Must  we  not  conclude  from 
this  silence  of  Josephus  that  he  knew  nothing  about 
Jesus,  though,  if  Jesus  had  really  existed  and  things  had 
occurred  as  tradition  affirms,  he  ought  certainly  to  have 
heard  of  and  mentioned  him,  just  as  he  mentions  a  John 
the  Baptist  and  refers  to  other  pretenders  to  the  messiah- 
ship  and  disturbers  of  the  people  ?  Weinel  maintains 
that  Josephus  would  only  count  as  a  witness  against 
the  historicity  of  Jesus  if  he  spoke  of  Christianity  and 
was  silent  only  about  Jesus  (p.  107).  But  what  if  he  had 
no  occasion  to  speak  of  it  because  our  whole  modern  view 
of  the  rise  of  Christendom,  and  the  part  it  played  during 
the  first  century,  is  radically  false  ? 

Josephus,  however,  is  not  silent  about  Jesus.  In  his 
Jewish  Antiquities  (xviii,  3,  3)  we  read :  "  About  this 
time  lived  Jesus,  a  wise  man,  if  indeed  he  should  be 
called  man.  He  wrought  miracles  and  was  a  teacher  of 
those  who  gladly  accept  the  truth,  and  had  a  large 
following  among  the  Jews  and  pagans.  He  was  the 
Christ.  Although  Pilate,  at  the  complaint  of  the  leaders 
of  our  people,  condemned  him  to  die  on  the  cross,  his 


8  THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES 

earlier  followers  were  faithful  to  him.  For  he  appeared 
to  them  alive  again  on  the  third  day,  as  god-sent  prophets 
had  foretold  this  and  a  thousand  other  wonderful  things 
of  him.  The  people  [sect  ?]  of  the  Christians,  which  is 
called  after  him,  survives  until  the  present  day." 

Here,  it  would  appear,  we  have  what  we  seek.  Unfor- 
tunately, the  genuineness  of  the  passage  is  by  no  means 
admitted.  There  are  two  opinions  on  it.  According  to 
one  view,  the  whole  passage  is  an  interpolation ;  according 
to  the  other,  it  has  merely  been  altered  by  a  Christian  hand, 

Let  us  examine  the  words  of  Josephus  which  remain 
after  the  expurgation  of  the  supposed  possible  interpola- 
tions. They  are  as  follows :  "  About  this  time  lived 
Jesus,  a  wise  man.  He  had  a  large  following  among 
the  Jews  and  pagans.  Although  Pilate,  at  the  complaint 
of  the  leaders  of  our  people,  condemned  him  to  die  on 
the  cross,  his  earlier  followers  were  faithful  to  him.  The 
sect  of  the  Christians,  which  is  called  after  him,  survives 
until  the  present  day."  Immediately  before  this  Josephus 
tells  of  a  rising  of  the  Jews,  due  to  a  bitter  feeling  at  the 
conduct  of  Pilate,  and  its  bloody  suppression  by  the  ruling 
power.  The  words  that  immediately  follow  the  passage 
are :  "  Also  about  this  time  another  misfortune  befel  the 
Jews";  and  we  are  told  of  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from 
Home  by  Tiberius  on  account  of  the  conduct  of  some  of 
their  compatriots. 

What  is  the  connection  between  the  reference  to  Jesus 
and  these  two  narratives  ?  That  there  must  be  some 
connection,  if  Josephus  himself  has  written  the  passage 
about  Jesus,  goes  without  saying,  in  view  of  the  character 
of  the  writer.  Josephus  is  always  careful  to  have  a 
logical  connection  between  his  statements.  The  repres- 
sion of  the  Jews  by  Pilate  must,  naturally,  have  been 
regarded  by  Josephus  as  "  a  misfortune."  We  likewise 
understand  the  concern  of  the  Jewish  historian  at  the 
expulsion  of  his  compatriots  from  Borne.  These  two 
episodes  are  directly  connected  by  their  very  nature. 


THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES  9 

But  what  have  the  condemnation  and  crucifixion  of  Jesus 
to  do  with  them?  If  Josephus  really  considered  the 
fate  of  Jesus  as  a  misfortune  of  his  people,  why  was  he 
content  to  devote  to  it  a  couple  of  meagre  and  lifeless 
sentences  ?  Why  was  he  silent  about  the  followers  'of 
Jesus  ?  We  have  already  seen  that  the  reasons  usually 
advanced  for  this  silence  are  worthless.  From  a  rational 
point  of  view,  Josephus  had  no  occasion  whatever  to  put 
the  passage  about  Jesus  in  the  connection  in  which  we 
find  it.  That,  on  the  other  hand,  the  later  Christians 
had  every  interest  in  inserting  the  passage,  and  inserting 
it  precisely  at  this  point,  where  there  is  question  of  events 
in  the  time  of  Pilate  and  of  the  misfortunes  of  the  Jews, 
is  clear  enough ;  it  must  have  been  to  the  Christians  a 
matter  of  profound  astonishment  and  concern  that  in 
such  a  connection  there  was  not  a  word  about  Jesus, 
whose  name  was  for  them  intimately  connected  with  that 
of  Pilate.  And  was  not  the  condemnation  of  Jesus  at 
the  demand  of  the  Jewish  leaders  really  the  greatest 
misfortune  that  the  Jews  had  ever  incurred?1  In  the 
edition  of  Origen  published  by  the  Benedictines  it  is  said2, 
that  there  was  no  mention  of  Jesus  at  all  in  Josephus 
before  the  time  of  Eusebius  (about  300  A.D.,  Ecclesiast. 
Hist.,  1, 11).  Moreover,  in  the  sixteenth  century  Vossius 
had  a  manuscript  of  the  text  of  Josephus  in  which  there 
was  not  a  word  about  Jesus.  It  seems,  therefore,  that 
the  passage  must  have  been  an  interpolation,  whether  it 
was  subsequently  modified  or  not.  We  are  led  to  the 
same  conclusion  by  the  fact  that  neither  Justin,  nor 
Tertullian,  nor  Origen,  nor  Cyprian  ever  quotes  Josephus 
as  a  witness  in  their  controversies  with  Jews  and  pagans. 
Yet  Justin,  at  least,  could  have  had  no  better  argument 
than  the  testimony  of  a  compatriot  in  his  dialogue  with 
the  Jew  Trypho.  Indeed,  Origen  says  expressly  that 
Josephus  did  not  recognise  Jesus  as  the  Messiah.3 

1  Cf.  Origen,  Contra  Celsum,  I,  47.     2  I,  362.     8  Contra  Celsum,  I,  47. 


10  THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES 

The  same  difficulties  arise  in  regard  to  the  other 
passage  in  Josephus,1  where  the  Jewish  historian  tells 
how  the  younger  Ananus  (Hannas),  at  the  time  when  the 
governor  Festus  died  and  his  successor  Albinus  was  as 
yet  on  the  way,  summoned  a  Council,  brought  before  it 
James,  the  "  brother  of  Jesus,  who  was  called  Christ," 
and  had  him  and  some  others  stoned  for  transgression  of 
the  law  (62  A.D.).  It  is  extremely  doubtful  whether 
James  is  understood  by  Josephus  to  be  the  corporal 
brother  of  Jesus,  as  brotherhood  might  very  well  mean 
only  that  he  belonged  to  the  Jesus-sect.  In  that  sense 
Josephus  would  merely  be  saying  that  James  was  a 
"brother  of  Jesus,"  or  leader  of  those  who  venerated  the 
Messiah  (Christ)  under  the  name  of  Jesus.  It  is  more 
probable,  however,  that  this  passage  also  is  a  later  inter- 
polation, as  Credner2  and  Schurer  are  disposed  to  admit. 
Weiss  also  (88)  regards  this  passage  in  the  text  as  a 
Christian  interpolation ;  and  Jiilicher  too  says,  in  his 
essay  on  "  Keligion  and  the  Beginning  of  Christianity," 
in  Hinneberg's  Kultur  der  Gegenwart  (2nd  ed.  1909), 
that  Josephus  leaves  Jesus  "  unmentioned  "  (loc.  cit.,  43). 

We  understand,  therefore,  why  Origen  knows  nothing 
of  the  passage.  In  his  polemical  work  against  Celsus  he 
does  not  mention  it  when  he  comes  to  speak  of  James,8 
though  he  refers  to  another  in  which  Josephus  represents 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  as  a  punishment  of  the  Jews 
for  having  put  James  to  death ;  which  certainly  does  not 
accord  with  the  facts. 

3.— THE  TALMUD. 

When  we  have  thus  excluded  Josephus  from  the 
number  of  witnesses  to  the  historicity  of  Jesus,  there 
remains  only  the  question  whether  there  may  not  be  some 
evidence  in  the  other  Jewish  literature  of  the  time:  in 
the  body  of  Rabbinical  writings  collected  under  the  name 

1  Antiquities,  xx,  9,  i.        2  Einl.  ins  N.  T.,  1836,  p.  581.        8  I,  47. 


THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES  11 

of  the  Talmud,  which  cover  a  period  from  about  200  B.C. 
to  600  A.D/The  answer  is  that  no3nformation  f\fout~ 
found  in  the  Talmud^^One  would  suppose 


that,  in  works  intended  solelyTor  a  Jewish  public,  the 
Eabbis  of  the  time  would  not  fail  to  take  the  opportunity 
of  attacking  Jesus,  if  he  spoke  and  acted  as  the  gospels 
describe.  Instead  of  this,  they  almost_  eniirely_jgrio: 
him,  and,  when  they  do  mention  Jmn^/their  references 
have  not  the  least  historical  importance.  Von  Soden 
declares  that  they  had  no  opportunity  of  dealing  seriously 
with  him,  as  the  oldest  collection,  entitled  "  Sayings  of 
the  Fathers,"  contains  only  moral  sentences.  Never- 
theless, all  these  moral  aphorisms,  definitions  of  religious 
law,  and  ritual  prescriptions  are  closely  connected  with 
the  meaning  of  the  work.  They  partly  relate  to  the  same 
subjects  as  the  sayings  of  Jesus.  They  bring  together 
the  opposing  views  of  the  various  famous  Rabbis.  Why 
is  the  Talmud  silent  about  Jesus  in  this  connection? 
Why  is  there  not  the  slightest  definite  reference  to  the 
man  who  expounded  the  law  more  subtly  than  any  other 
Jewish  teacher,  and  made  the  most  serious  attack  upon 
the  orthodox  conception  ? 

It  is  poor  consolation  for  the  supporters  of  the  historicity 
of  Jesus  when  an  expert  on  the  Talmud,  Chwolson,  says 
that  there  was  no  contemporary  Rabbinical  literature. 
In  the  extant  Eabbinical  literature  of  the  second  century 
there  is,  on  his  own  showing,  much  material  and  many 
sayings  that  "  belong  to  the  Rabbis  of  the  second  and 
first  centuries  of  the  Christian  era."1  In  fact,  there  are 
supposed  to  be  among  them  three  valuable  references 
of  the  first  and  beginning  of  the  second  century  —  the 
experience,  namely,  of  the  Rabbi  Eliezer  ben  Hyrcanus, 
the  brother-in-law  of  Gamaliel  II.,  with  the  Judaeo- 
Christian  James  of  Kefar-Schechania,  of  whom  it  is  said 
that  he  was  a  "  pupil  "  (disciple)  of  Jesus,  and  had  healed 

1   Ueber  die  Frage  ob  Jesus  gekbt  hat,  p.  11. 


12  THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES 

the  sick  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  Then  there  is  the  explana- 
tion by  Jesus  of  a  difficulty  in  the  law,  which  the  said 
James  put  to  him,  and  which  Jesus  settled  by  a  certain 
verse,  after  the  fashion  of  the  Kabbis.  Lastly,  there  is 
the  doubt  of  the  Rabbi  as  to  the  orthodoxy  of  Jesus  and 
the  disdain  he  himself  incurred  by  becoming  a  Christian. 
But  who  doubts  for  a  moment  that  at  the  close  of  the 
first  century  and  in  the  first  half  of  the  second  sayings 
and  explanations  of  the  law  were  current  in  the  name  of 
Jesus,  that  the  name  of  Jesus  was  used  in  exorcisms,  and 
that  sympathy  with  the  Jesus-sect  might  in  certain 
circumstances  have  very  unpleasant  consequences  for  a 
Kabbi  ?l 

There  is  no  room  for  doubt  that  after  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  and  especially  during  the  first  quarter  of 
the  second  century,  the  hostility  of  the  Jews  and 
Christians  increased,  as  not  only  Chwolson  himself 
(Das  letzte  Passahmahl  Christi)  and  Joel,2  but  also 
Lublinski,  has  recently  shown.3  Indeed,  by  the  year  130 
the  hatred  of  the  Jews  for  the  Christians  became  so  fierce 
that  a  Rabbi,  whose  niece  had  been  bitten  by  a  serpent, 
preferred  to  let  her  die  rather  than  see  her  healed  "  in 
the  name  of  Jesus."  But  when  Chwolson  says  that  we 
see  from  these  passages  that  the  Rabbis  of  the  second 
half  of  the  first  century,  or  the  beginning  of  the  second, 
were  "well  acquainted  with  the  person  of  Christ"  (13), 
he  clearly  deceives  himself  and  his  readers,  if  the  impres- 
sion is  given  that  they  had  any  personal  knowledge  of 
him. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Rabbis  are  said  to  have 
possessed,  as  early  as  the  year  71  A.D.,  a  gospel  which, 

1  Moreover,  it  is  by  no  means  established  that  the  Jesus  whom  James 
of  Kefar  followed  was  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels.     Neubauer,  in  his  text  of 
the  Talmud,  read,  instead  of  Jesus  ha-Nozri  (the  Nazarene) ,  Jesus  Pandira, 
who  was  supposed  to  be  a  contemporary  of  the  Rabbi  Akiba  (p.  135).     Cf. 
K.  Lippe,  Das  Evangelium  Matthaei  vor  den  Forum  der  Bibel  und  des 
Talmud,  1889,  p.  26. 

2  Blicke  in  die  Religionsgeschichte,  II,  1883,  especially  p.  73,  etc. 

8  Die  Entstehung  des  Christenthums  aus  der  antiken  Kultur,  1910. 


THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES  13 

according  to  Chwolson,  "  was  probably  the  original  gospel 
of  Matthew."  About  that  time  a  judge  appointed  by  the 
Komans,  "  undoubtedly  a  Judaeo-Christian  of  Pauline 
tendencies,"  though  he  is  not  expressly  described  as  such, 
quotes  Mattheio  v,  17,  in  the  Aramaic  language,  where  it 
is  said  that  Christ  did  not  wish  to  abolish,  but  to  supple- 
ment, the  Mosaic  law.  In  his  work  Jesus,  die  Hdretiker 
und  die  Christen  nach  den  dltesten  jildischen  Angaben 
(1910,  p.  19,  etc.),  Strach  has  given  us  a  literal  translation 
of  this  passage.1  It  runs  : — 

Imma  Salom  was  the  wife  of  the  Rabbi  Eliezer,  the 
sister  of  Eabban  Gamaliel.  Among  his  acquaintances 
was  a  "  philosopher  "  who  had  the  reputation  of  being 
incorruptible.  They  ivished  to  make  him  ridiculous. 
Therefore  she  [Imma]  brought  to  him  a  golden  candle- 
stick, and  said  :  "  I  desire  a  part  of  the  family  property." 
He  answered  them  :  "  Divide  it."  Then  he  [B.  Gamaliel] 
said  :  "  It  is  written  for  us2  that,  where  there  is  a  son, 
the  daughter  inherits  nothing."  He  answered  :  "  Since 
ye  were  driven  from  your  land  the  law  of  Moses  is 
abolished,  and  there  is  Avon-gillajon  [Evangelium^the 
Gospel] ,  in  which  it  is  written,  '  Son  and  daughter  shall 
inherit  together.'  "  On  the  following  day  he  [B.  Gamaliel] 
on  his  own  part  brought  him  a  Libyan  ass.  Then  he 
replied :  "I  have  searched  further  in  the  Avon-gillajon, 
and  it  is  written  therein  :  '  I,  Avon-gillajon,  have  not  come 
to  do  away  with  the  Thora,  but  to  add  to  the  Thora  of 
Moses  have  I  come.'  And  it  is  further  written  therein : 
'  Where  there  is  a  son,  the  daughter  shall  not  inherit.'  " 
Then  she  said  :  "  Thy  light  shineth  like  a  candle."  And 
B.  Gamaliel  said :  "  The  ass  has  come,  and  has  attached 
the  candle  " 

— i.e.,  someone  had  spoiled  the  effect  of  a  small  bribe  by 
giving  a  larger  one. 

It  is  possible  that  we  really  have  here  a  reference  to 
the  text  of  Matthew,  and  this  is  the  more  likely  when  we 
consider  the  play  upon  the  candlestick,  in  reference  to 
Mattheio  v,  14-16.  That  there  is  no  question  of  our 
Matthew  is  certain,  as  there  is  no  such  passage  in  any  of 

». 

1  Babyl.  Talmud  Sabbath,  p.  116,  etc.  2  Numbers  xxvii,  8. 


14  THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES 

our  gospels  that  the  son  and  daughter  shall  inherit 
together ;  Jesus,  on  the  contrary,  often  expressly  dis- 
suades from  mingling  in  these  quarrels  about  inheritance.1 
But  what  right  has  Chwolson  to  put  the  witness  of  this 
"  Primitive  Matthew,"  which  seems  to  be  referred  to  in 
the  anecdote,  about  the  year  71  A.D.  ?  Chwolson  relies 
on  the  fact  that  B>.  Gamaliel  (died  about  124)  was  the 
son  of  the  R.  Simeon  ben  Gamaliel  who  is  known  to  us 
from  Acts  v,  34,  where  he  cleverly  speaks  for  the 
Christians,  and  Acts  xxii,  3,  as  a  teacher  of  the  Apostle 
Paul,  and  who  was  executed  about  70  A.D.  with  other 
Rabbis  who  had  taken  part  in  the  rising  against  the 
Eomans.  He  gratuitously  assumes  that  the  passage  in 
the  Talmud  refers  to  the  quarrel  about  the  property  of 
the  dead  father,  which  would  be  divided  about  the  year  71. 
This  is  plausible  enough  if  there  is  question  in  the  passage 
of  a  genuine  quarrel  about  inheritance.  But  that  is 
precisely  what  the  text  of  the  passage  excludes.  .  It  is 
expressly  stated  that  they  wished  to  bring  ridicule  upon 
the  "  philosopher "  who  had  an  unmerited  repute  for 
incorruptibility.  There  is  question,  therefore,  of  a  purely 
fictitious  quarrel  about  inheritance,  and  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  this  would  necessarily  be  about  the  year  71. 
Indeed,  the  text  itself  shows  that  it  was  not,  as  the  Jews 
were  not  yet  expelled  in  71 ;  so  that  Chwolson  finds  himself 
compelled  to  change  the  expression  "  driven  from  your 
country  "  into  "  lost  your  country."  Hence  Chwolson's 
statement  that  there  is  evidence  of  a  Gospel  of  Matthew 
in  71  A.D.  breaks  down.  Moreover,  even  if  the  existence 
of  such  a  gospel  at  that  time  were  proved,  it  would  have 
no  bearing  on  the  historicity  of  Jesus.  The  saying  in 
Matthew  v,  17  is  not  at  all  quoted  in  the  Talmud  passage 
as  a  saying  of  Jesus,  as  one  would  gather  from  Chwolson. 
"  We  see,"  says  Chwolson  emphatically  and  in  large  type, 
"  from  this  important  reference  that  not  only  was  there 

1  Luke  xii,  14. 


THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES  15 

a  Gospel  of  Matthew  in  existence  about  the  year  71  A.D., 
but  it  was  already  well  known  to  the  Christians  of  the 
time."  As  you  please ;  but  one  would  like  to  know  what 
this  proves  in  regard  to  the  historicity  of  Jesus.1 

In  addition  to  the  few  first-century  references  quoted 
by  Chwolson,  and  regarded  by  him  as  "  of  great  historical 
value,"  the  Talmud  contains  a  comparatively  large  number 
of  references  to  Jesus,  mostly  of  the  third  and  fourth 
centuries.  They  have,  of  course,  as  Chwolson  admits, 
"no  historical  value  whatever  "  (p.  11).  They  are  rather 
caricatures  of  Jesus,  when  they  do  plainly  refer  to  him  ; 
though  this,  on  account  of  the  cryptic  phrasing  of  the 
Rabbis,  does  not  seem  to  be  the  case  quite  as  frequently 
as  is  generally  supposed.  Derenbourg  has  shown  that 
the  much-quoted  Stada  or  ben  Sat'da  is  not  originally 
identical  with  Jesus,  and  Strach  also  admits  that  the 
scanty  material  in  regard  to  Jesus  which  earlier  students 
found  in  the  Talmud  shrinks  still  further  on  more  careful 
inquiry.2  Jiilicher,  however,  has  pointed  out  that,  as  the 
caricatures  of  the  Jesus-story  are  familiar  to  E.  Akiba, 
we  may  conclude  that  the  Christian  tradition  itself  is 
much  older.  Now,  Akiba  met  his  end,  in  old  age,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  bloody  rising  of  the  Jews  under  Bar 
Kochba,  in  the  year  135.  It  is  not  disputed  that  the 
evangelical  tradition  existed  in  the  first  third  of  the 
second  century,  when  the  hostility  of  the  Jews  and 
Christians  was  at  its  height.  What  "proof"  is  there, 
then,  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus  in  the  fact  that  Akiba,  a 
fierce  enemy  of  the  Christians,  spoke  bitterly  of  Jesus  at 
that  time  ?  Certainly  he  regards  him  as  an  historical 
personage,  just  as  the  Talmud  generally  never  doubts  that 
Jesus  had  really  existed.  But  Joel  has,  in  this  con- 
nection, shown  that  the  Talmudists  of  the  second  century 
were  careless  about  everything  except  the  study  of  the 


1  Compare  Steudel,  ImKampf  um  die  ChristusmytJie,  1910,  p.  83,  etc. 

2  There  is  a  complete  collection  of  the  relevant  passages  in  H.  Laible, 
Jesus  Christus  im  Talmud,  1891,  2nd  ed.  1900. 


16  THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES 

scriptures  and  the  law,  and  pointed  out  that  it  is  "  one  of 
the  most  curious  and  astonishing  consequences  "  of  this 
indifference  that  they  were  so  poorly  informed  in  regard 
to  events  in  the  time  of  Jesus.1  The  Talmud  derives  all 
that  it  knows  of  the  origin  of  Christianity  from  the  little 
that  has  reached  it  of  the  gospel  tradition  and  from  the 
impression  it  has  of  the  life  of  Jesus  from  the  events  of 
the  second  century  ;  and  it  changes  its  statements,  as 
time  goes  on,  in  harmony  with  the  changes  in  the 
Christian  tradition.  Thus  Akiba,  for  instance,  followed 
the  narrative  of  the  Synoptics  in  regard  to  the  death  of 
Jesus,  and  put  the  execution  on  the  Feast-day.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  somewhat  later  Mischna  iv,  1,  and  the 
Gemara  give  the  later  version  of  the  Gospel  of  John,  that 
the  death  was  on  the  Day  of  Preparation  for  the  Passover. 
Hence  the  Talmud  has  no  independent  tradition  about 
Jesus;  all  that  it  says  of  him  is  merely  an  echo  of 
Christian  and  pagan  legends,  which  it  reproduces  accord- 
ing to  the  impressions  of  the  second  and  later  centuries, 
not  according  to  historical  tradition.2  That  is,  moreover, 
the  view  of  Julicher  in  Kultur  der  Gegenwart,  where  he 
says  that  the  Talmud  has  "borrowed  "  its  knowledge  of 
Jesus  from  the  gospels.  The  Talmud  is,  in  fact,  so 
imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  time  and  the  circum- 
stances of  Jesus  that  it  confuses  him  with  the  Rabbi 
Josua  ben  Perachja,  or  a  pupil  of  his  of  the  same  name 
(about  100  B.C.),  and  even  makes  him  a  contemporary  of 
Akiba  in  the  first  third  of  the  second  century.  Can  we, 
in  such  circumstances,  pretend  that  there  is  any  evidence 
for  the  historicity  of  Jesus  in  the  fact  that  the  Talmud 
does  not  question  it  ? 

It  is  not  true,  however,  as  has  recently  been  stated, 
that  no  Jew  ever  questioned  the  historical  reality  of 
Jesus,  so  that  we  may  see  in  this  some  evidence  for  his 
existence.  The  Jew  Trypho,  whom  Justin  introduces  in 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  54.  2  Joel,  loc.  cit.,  p.  54,  etc. 


THE  JEWISH  WITNESSES  17 

his  Dialogue  with  Trypho,  expresses  himself  very  scepti- 
cally about  it.  "  Ye  follow  an  empty  rumour,"  he  says, 
" and  make  a  Christ  for  yourselves."  "If  he  was  born 
and  lived  somewhere,  he  is  entirely  unknown."1  This 
work  appeared  in  the  second  half  of  the  second  century ; 
it  is  therefore  the  first  indication  of  a  denial  of  the 
human  existence  of  Jesus,  and  shows  that  such  opinions 
were  current  at  the  time. 


viii,  3.     Compare  also  K.  Lippe,  Das  Evangelium  des  Matthaus. 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 


1.— PLINY  AND  SUETONIUS. 

WE  now  come  to  the  Boman  witnesses  [to  the  historicity 
of  Jesus. 

Of  the  younger  Pliny  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  speak 
further  in  this  connection.  He  was  dragged  into  the 
discussion  of  the  "  Christ-myth  "  at  a  late  stage,  merely 
to  enlarge  the  list  of  witnesses  to  the  historicity  of  Jesus. 
No  one  seriously  believes  that  any  such  evidence  is  found 
in  Pliny.1  In  his  correspondence  with  the  Emperor 
Trajan,  which  is  believed  to  have  taken  place  about  the 
year  113,  and  which  is  occupied  with  the  question  how 
Pliny,  as  Proconsul  of  the  province  of  Bithynia  in  Asia 
Minor,  was  to  behave  in  regard  to  the  Christians,  he 
informs  the  Emperor  that  the  adherents  of  the  sect  sing 
hymns  to  Christ  at  daybreak  "  as  if  he  were  a  god  (quasi 
deo)."  What  this  proves  as  regards  the  historical  reality 
of  the  man  Christ  we  should  be  pleased  to  have  rationally 
explained.2  What  has  been  said  on  the  subject  up  to 


1  It  is  characteristic  of  the  tactics  of  our  opponents  that  certain  Catholic 
writers  have  begun  to  appeal  to  Porphyry,  the  Neoplatonic  philosopher, 
who  lived  232-304  A.D.      He  wrote   many   works   against   Christianity, 
which  we  know  only  indirectly  from  the  refutations  of  Methodius  and 
Eusebius.     No  one  can  say  precisely  what  they  contained,  as  the  Emperor 
Theodosius  II.  prudently  ordered  them  to  be  burned  in  public  in  the  year 
435.     What  does  that  matter  to  the  theologian  as  long  as  he  can  bring 
one  more  name  into  the  field  ? 

2  Moreover,  the  genuineness  of  this  correspondence  of  Pliny  and  Trajan 
is  by  no  means  certain.     Justin  does  not  mention  it  on  an  occasion  when 
we  should  expect  him  to  do  so,  and  even  Tertullian's  supposed  reference  to 
it  (ApoL,  cap.  ii)  is  very  doubtful.     The  tendency  of  the  letters  to  put  the 
Christians  in  as  favourable  a  light  as  possible  is  too  obvious  not  to  excite 
some  suspicion.     For  these   and  other  reasons  the  correspondence  was 
declared  by  experts  to  be  spurious  even  at  the  time  of  its  first  publication, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  ;  and  recent  authorities,  such  as 
Semler,  Aube1  (Histoire  des  Persecutions  de  I'lUglise,  1875,  p.  215,  etc.), 
Havet  (Le  Christianisme  et  ses  Origines,  1884,  iv,  8),  and  Hochart  (Etudes 

18 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES  19 

the  present  is  merely  frivolous,  adapted  only  to  an  utterly 
thoughtless  circle  of  readers  or  hearers.  Yet  even  a  man 
like  Jiilicher  does  not  hesitate  to  quote  Pliny  among  the 
profane  witnesses.  He  also  mentions  Marcus  Aurelius, 
who  expresses  his  anger  against  the  Christians  in  his 
Meditations  (about  the  year  175 !),  and  assures  us  that 
what  is  meant  there  by  Christianity  is  the  community  of 
those  who  believed  in  the  Jesus  of  our  and  their  gospels 
as  their  God  and  Saviour  (p.  17).  We  are  grateful  for  this 
"  information,"  but  we  should  have  expected  that  a 
scholar  like  Jiilicher  would  have  something  more  serious 
to  tell  us  on  the  subject. 

There  seems  to  be  more  significance  in  the  words  of 
the  Koman  historian  Suetonius  (77-140  A.D.),  who  tells 
us  in  his  Life  of  Claudius  (c.  25)  that  that  emperor 
"  expelled  from  Borne  the  Jews  because,  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  Chrestus,  they  were  perpetually  making  trouble  " 
(Claudius  Judseos  impulsore  Chresto  assidue  tumultuantes 
Eoma  expulit).  If  we  only  knew  precisely  who  is  meant 
by  this  Chrestus !  The  name  in  the  text  is  not 
"  Christus,"  but  "  Chrestus  "  (and  in  some  manuscripts 
Cherestus),  which  is  by  no  means  the  usual  designation 
of  Jesus,  while  it  is  a  common  name,  especially  among 
Koman  freedmen.  Hence  the  whole  passage  in  Suetonius 
may  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  question  of 
Christianity.  It  may  just  as  well  refer  to  any  disturb- 
ances whatever  caused  among  the  Jews  by  a  man  named 
Chrestus,  and  it  does  not  say  much  for  the  "  scientific  " 
spirit  of  theologians  when  they  interpret  it  in  their  own 
sense  without  further  ado, 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  connect  the  passage  in 
Suetonius  with  the  messianic  expectation  of  the  Jews, 
and  to  interpret  it  in  the  sense  of  referring  either  to 

au  Sujet  de  la  Persecution  des  Chretiens  sous  Neron,  1885,  pp.  79-143 ; 
compare  also  Bruno  Bauer,  Christus  und  die  Casaren,  1877,  p.  268,  etc., 
and  the  anonymously  published  work  of  Edwin  Johnson,  Antigua  Mater, 
1887),  which  have  disputed  its  authenticity,  either  as  a  whole  or  in 
material  points. 


20  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

quarrels  in  the  Jewish  community  at  Home  owing  to  the 
belief  of  those  who  held  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  they 
all  expected,  or  to  a  general  agitation  of  Roman  Judaism 
on  account  of  its  messianic  ideas  and  hostility  to  the 
pagan  world.  The  first  alternative,  however,  is  not  very 
helpful  in  view  of  the  fact  that,  when  Paul  came  to 
Eome  about  ten  years  afterwards  to  preach  the  gospel, 
the  Jews  there  seem  to  have  known  nothing  whatever 
about  Jesus ;  and,  according  to  the  account  in  Acts,  his 
arrival  led  to  no  disturbance  among  them.1  The  second 
alternative,  on  the  other  hand,  contains  no  evidence  for 
the  historicity  of  Jesus,  as,  even  if  we  substitute  Christus 
for  Chrestus,  "Christus"  is  merely  the  Greek-Latin 
translation  of  "  Messiah,"  and  the  phrase  "  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  Chrestus  "  would  refer  to  the  Messiah  generally, 
and  not  at  all  necessarily  to  the  particular  Messiah  Jesus 
as  an  historical  personality.2 

In  any  case,  however  we  interpret  the  passage  of 
Suetonius,  it  has  no  bearing  whatever  on  the  question  of 
the  historicity  of  Jesus.  Jiilicher  and  Weinel  admit  this 
when  they  omit  Suetonius  in  their  enumeration  of  profane 
witnesses.  J.  Weiss  also  admits :  "  The  passage  in 
Suetonius  relating  to  Jewish  disturbances  at  Eome  in 
the  time  of  Claudius  'impulsore  Chresto '  betrays  so 
inaccurate  a  knowledge  of  the  facts  that  it  cannot 
seriously  be  regarded  as  a  witness  "  (p.  88). 

2.— TACITUS. 

The  passage  in  Suetonius  leaves  it  uncertain  who 
Chrestus  is,  and  cannot,  therefore,  be  advanced  as  a 

1  Acts  xxviii,  17,  etc. 

2  In  his  Geschichte  der    Romisclien  Kaiser  zeit,  Bd.  I,    Abt.  I    (1883), 
p.  447,  Hermann  Schiller  also  connects  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  under 
Claudius  with    their  domestic  disturbances,  and  says  :    "  It   is  time  to 
desist  from  the  practice  of  identifying  the  impulsor  Chrestus  in  Suetonius 
with  Christ.     Words  ending  in  '  tor '  stand  for  a  constant  property,  or  an 
act   that   impresses  a  definite   and   permanent  stamp  on  the  subject  in 
question  ;  in  neither  case  can  we  refer  this  to  Christ,  who  had  never  been 
in  Rome,  and  was  no  longer  living  ;  the  activity  of  the  impulsor  can  relate 
only  to  the  assidue  tumultuantes  referred  to." 


THE  KOMAN  WITNESSES  21 

proof  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus.  It  is  very  different 
with  the  evidence  of  Tacitus.  In  the  Annals  (xv,  44) 
Christ  is  expressly  mentioned  as  an  historical  personage. 
The  historian  has  related  what  measures  were  taken  by 
Nero  to  lessen  the  suffering  brought  about  by  the  great 
fire  at  Rome  in  the  year  64,  and  to  remove  the  traces  of 
it.  He  then  continues  :  "But  neither  the  aid  of  man,  nor 
the  liberality  of  the  prince,  nor  the  propitiations  of  the 
gods,  succeeded  in  destroying  the  belief  that  the  fire  had 
been  purposely  lit.  In  order  to  put  an  end  to  this  rumour, 
therefore,  Nero  laid  the  blame  on  and  visited  with  severe 
punishment  those  men,  hateful  for  tyeir  crimes,  whom 
the  people  called  Christians  [Ergo  afcolendo  rumori  Nero 
subdidit  reos  et  quaesitissimis  poenis  affecit  quos  per  flagitia 
invisos  vulgus  Christianos  appellabat] .  He  from  whom 
the  name  was  derived,  Christus,  was  put  to  death  by  the 
procurator  Pontius  Pilatus  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius  [autor 
nominis  ejus  Christus,  Tiberio  imperitante,  per  procura- 
torem  Pentium  Pilaturn  supplicio  affectus  erat] .  But  the 
pernicious  superstition,  checked  for  a  moment,  broke  out 
again,  not  only  in  Judaea,  the  native  land  of  the  mon- 
strosity, but  also  in  Rome,  to  which  all  conceivable 
horrors  and  abominations  flow  from  every  side,  and  find 
supporters.  First,  therefore,  those  were  arrested  who 
openly  confessed ;  then,  on  their  information,  a  great 
number,  who  were  not  so  much  convicted  of  the  fire  as  of 
hatred  of  the  human  race.  Ridicule  was  poured  on  them 
as  they  died ;  so  that,  clothed  in  the  skins  of  beasts,  they 
were  torn  to  pieces  by  dogs,  or  crucified,  or  committed  to 
the  flames,  and  when  the  sun  had  gone  down  they  were 
burned  to  light  up  the  night  [Igitur  primum  correpti,  qui 
fatebantur,  deinde  indicio  eorum  multitude  ingens,  haud 
proinde  in  crimine  incendii  quam  odio  humani  generis 
convicti  sunt.  Et  pereuntibus  addita  ludibria,  ut  ferarum 
tergis  contecti  laniatu  canum  interirent,  aut  crucibus  afiixi, 
aut  flammandi,  atque  ubi  defecisset  dies,  in  usum  nocturni 
luminis  urerentur] .  Nero  had  lent  his  garden  for  this 


22  THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES 

spectacle,  and  gave  games  in  the  Circus,  mixing  with  the 
people  in  the  dress  of  a  charioteer  or  standing  in  the 
chariot.  Hence  there  was  a  strong  sympathy  for  them, 
though  they  might  have  been  guilty  enough  to  deserve 
the  severest  punishment,  on  the  ground  that  they  were 
sacrificed,  not  to  the  general  good,  but  to  the  cruelty  of 
one  man." 

(a)  Evidential  Value  of  the  Passage. — When  Tacitus 
is  assumed  to  have  written,  about  the  year  117,  that  the 
founder  of  the  sect,  Christus,  was  put  to  death  by  the 
procurator  Pontius  Pilate  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  Chris- 
tianity was  already  an  organised  religion  with  a  settled 
tradition.  Even  the  gospels,  or  at  least  three  of  them, 
are  supposed  to  have  then  been  in  existence.  Hence 
Tacitus  might  have  derived  his  information  about  Jesus, 
if  not  directly  from  the  gospels,  at  all  events  indirectly 
from  them  by  means  of  oral  tradition.  That  was  the 
view  of  Dupuis,  who  writes :  "  Tacitus  says  what  the 
legend  said.  Had  he  been  speaking  of  the  Brahmans,  he 
would  have  said,  in  the  same  way,  that  they  derived  their 
name  from  a  certain  Brahma,  who  had  lived  in  India,  as 
there  was  a  legend  about  him  ;  yet  Brahma  would  not  on 
that  account  have  lived  as  a  man,  as  Brahma  is  merely 
the  name  of  one  of  the  three  manifestations  of  the 
personified  god-head.  When  Tacitus  spoke  thus  in  his 
account  of  Nero  and  the  sect  of  the  Christians,  he  merely 
gave  the  supposed  etymology  of  the  name,  without  caring 
in  the  least  whether  Christ  had  really  existed  or  it  was 
merely  the  name  of  the  hero  of  some  sacred  legend. 
Such  an  inquiry  was  quite  foreign  to  his  work."  Even 
J.  Weiss  observes :  "  Assuredly  there  were  the  general 
lines  of  even  a  purely  fictitious  Christian  tradition  Already 
laid  down  about  the  year  100 ;  Tacitus  may  therefore 
draw  upon  this  tradition  "  (p.  88).  It  has  been  said^on  the 
authority  of  Mommsen,  that  Tacitus  may  have  derived  his 

1   Ursprung  der  Gottesvcrchrung ,  p.  223  ;  cf.  also  p.  227. 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES  23 

information  from  the  Acts  of  the  Senate  and  the  archives 
of  the  State,  and  it  has  been  suggested  that  his  authority 
was  Cluvius  Kufus,  who  was  consul  under  Caligula.  Weiss 
says,  however :  "  That  he  or  any  other  had  seen  a  report 
from  Pontius  Pilate  in  the  records  of  the  Senate  is  a 
hypothesis  I  should  not  care  to  adopt,  as  it  would  be 
complicating  a  simple  matter  with  an  improbability." 
"  Archival  studies,"  we  read  in  the  Handbuch  der  klassi- 
schen  Altertumswissenschaft,  ''are  not  very  familiar  to 
ancient  historiography;  and  Tacitus  has  paid  very  little 
attention  to  the  act  a  diurna  and  the  records  of  the 
Senate."1  In  fact,  Hermann  Schiller  says,  in  his 
Geschickte  des  Edmischen  Kaiserreichs  unter  der 
Eegierung  des  Nero  (1872) :  "  We  are  accustomed  to 
hearing  Tacitus  praised  as  a  model  historian,  and  in 
many  respects  it  may  be  true ;  but  it  does  not  apply  to 
his  criticism  of  his  authorities  and  his  own  research,  for 
these  were  astonishingly  poor  in  Tacitus.  He  never 
studied  the  archives."'  It  is,  moreover,  extremely 
improbable  that  a  special  report  would  be  sent  to  Kome, 
and  incorporated  in  the  records  of  the  Senate,  in  regard  to 
the  death  of  a  Jewish  provincial,  Jesus.  "  The  execution 
of  a  Nazareth  carpenter  was  one  of  the  most  insignificant 
events  conceivable  among  the  movements  of  Eoman 
history  in  those  decades ;  it  completely  disappeared 
beneath  the  innumerable  executions  inflicted  by  the 
Koman  provincial  authorities.  It  would  be  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  instances  of  chance  in  the  world  if  it 
were  mentioned  in  any  official  report."'  It  is  the  sort  of 
thing  we  may  expect  from  a  Tertullian,  who,  in  his 
Apology  for  Christianity  (c.  21),  tells  one  who  doubts  the 
truth  -ff  tjie  gospel  story  that  he  will  find  a  special  report 
of  Pilate  t5%Tiberius  in  the  Eoman  archives.  In  the 
mouth  of  a  modern  historian  such  a  statement  is  frankly 
ridiculotfe, 

1  viii,  2  Abt.,  Heft  2,  under  "Tacitus." 

2  Work  quoted,  p.  7.  3  Weiss,  work  quoted,  p.  92. 


24  THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES 

There  is  nothing,  then,  in  the  records  of  the  Senate, 
and  of  Cluvius  Rufus  we  know  next  to  nothing.  As 
Bruno  Bauer  ironically  observes :  "  That  the  founder  of 
Christianity  was  put  to  death  under  Tiberius  by  the 
procurator  Pontius  Pilate  must  have  been  discovered  by 
the  historian — who  was  not  otherwise  a  very  assiduous 
searcher  of  the  archives — in  the  same  archive  which, 
according  to  Tertullian,  also  gave  the  fact  that  the  sun 
was  darkened  at  midday  when  Jesus  died."1  In  any  case 
the  reference  in  Tacitus  is  no  proof  of  the  historicity  of 
Jesus,  because  it  is  far  too  late  ;  it  is  almost  certain  that 
the  Roman  historian  simply  derived  it  from  the  Christian 
legend.  Tacitus  could  in  117  know  of  Christ  only  what 
reached  him  from  Christian  or  intermediate  circles.  In 
such  matters  he  merely  reproduced  rumours  in  whatever 
light  his  subject  seemed  to  him  to  demand.2 

Here  we  might  close  our  investigation  into  the  profane 
witnesses.  We  have  reached  the  same  result  as  J.  Weiss: 
"There  is  no  really  cogent  witness  in  profane  literature  " 
(p.  92).  Weinel  comes  to  the  same  conclusion  when  he 
says  that  not  much  importance  can  be  attached  by  either 
side  to  non-Christian  witnesses :  "  As  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  at  the  time  when  the  Annals  of  Tacitus,  the 
letters  of  Pliny,  and  even  the  historical  works  of  Josephus, 
appeared,  Christianity  was  widely  spread  in  the  Koman 
Empire  and  traced  its  origin  to  Jesus,  the  man  of 
Nazareth, who  was  crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate"  (p.  104). 
Jiilicher  also,  in  the  above-mentioned  essay  in  Kultur  der 
Gegenwart,  denies  altogether  the  evidential  value  of  the 
Eoman  profane  witnesses. 

(b)  The  Question  of  the  Genuineness  of  "Annals,"  xv,  44. 
— It  is,  however,  not  superfluous,  perhaps,  to  consider  more 
closely  what  is  regarded  as  the  most  important  profane 
witness  for  the  historicity  of  Jesus — that  of  Tacitus. 
Such  witnesses  still  seem  to  make  a  great  impression  on 

1  Christus  und  die  Cttsaren,  p.  155.  2  Schiller,  work  quoted. 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES  25 

the  general  public.  Even  theologians  who  are  themselves 
convinced  of  the  worthlessness  of  such  witnesses  as 
regards  the  problem  we  are  considering  do  not  fail,  as  a 
rule,  to  repeat  them  to  "the  people"  as  if  they  gave 
some  confirmation  of  their  belief  in  an  historical  Jesus. 
That  would  be  prevented  once  for  all  if  it  could  be  proved 
that  the  whole  passage  is  not  from  the  pen  of  Tacitus  at 
all.  However,  this  statement,  which  I  advanced  in  the 
Christ  Myth  in  accordance  with  the  view  of  the  French 
writer  Hochart,  has  been  so  vehemently  attacked,  even 
by  those  who,  like  Weiss  and  Weinel,  admit  the  worth- 
lessness of  the  passage  as  far  as  the  historicity  of  Jesus 
is  concerned,  that  it  seems  necessary  to  inquire  somewhat 
closely  into  the  genuineness  of  Annals,  xv,  44. 

I.    ARGUMENTS    FOB   THE    GENUINENESS. 

There  can,  of  course,  be  no  question  of  any  impossibility 
of  interpolating  the  passage  in  the  Annals  on  the  ground 
of  "the  inimitable  style  of  Tacitus,"  as  defenders  of  the 
genuineness  repeat  after  Gibbon.1  There  is  no  "  inimit- 
able "  style  for  the  clever  forger,  and  the  more  unusual, 
distinctive,  and  peculiar  a  style  is,  like  that  of  Tacitus, 
the  easier  it  is  to  imitate  it.  It  would  be  strange  if  a 
monastic  copyist  of  Tacitus,  occupied  with  his  work  for 
months,  if  not  for  years,  could  not  so  far  catch  his  style 
as  to  be  able  to  write  these  twenty  or  twenty-five  lines  in 
the  manner  of  Tacitus.  Teuffel,  in  his  Geschichte  der 
Edm.  Literature  (5th  ed.  1890,  ii,  1137),  commends 
Sulpicius  Severus  for  his  "  skill "  in  imitating  Tacitus, 
among  others,  in  his  composition.  Such  an  imitation  is 
not,  in  my  opinion,  beyond  the  range  of  possibility. 
Moreover,  as  far  as  the  historicity  of  Jesus  is  concerned, 
we  are,  perhaps,  interested  only  in  one  single  sentence  of 
the  passage,  and  that  has  nothing  distinctively  Tacitan 
about  it. 

1  Decline  and  Fall,  ch.  xvi. 


26  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

Equally  invalid  is  the  claim  that  the  way  in  which 
Tacitus  speaks  of  the  Christians  excludes  all  idea  of  a 
Christian  interpolation.  Von  Soden  thinks  that  Christians 
"  would  certainly  have  put  early  Christianity  in  a  more 
favourable  light,  as  they  always  did  when  they  falsified 
the  story  of  the  rise  of  Christianity  in  the  historical  works 
they  read."  He  overlooks  the  fact  that  the  injurious 
epithets  on  the  new  religion  and  its  adherents  would 
probably,  in  the  opinion  of  the  forger,  tend  to  strengthen 
its  chances  of  passing  as  genuine.  They  are  just  what 
one  might  suppose  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  disposition 
of  Tacitus.  The  expressions,  moreover,  are  at  once 
enfeebled  by  the  reference  to  the  sympathy  that  the 
Komans  are  supposed  to  have  felt  for  the  victims  of 
Nero's  cruelty.  It  is  a  common  occurrence  in  the 
accounts  of  the  Christian  martyrs  for  the  pagan  opponents 
of  Christianity  to  find  their  hostility  changed  into  sym- 
pathy, and  recognise  the  innocence  of  the  persecuted 
Christians.  We  need  quote  only  the  description  of  Pilate 
in  Matthew  and  Luke — his  "  I  find  no  blame  in  him" 
and  "  I  am  innocent  of  the  blood  of  this  just  man  " — and 
the  supposed  words  of  Agrippa  when  Paul  is  charged 
before  him  :  "  This  man  doeth  nothing  worthy  of  death 
or  of  bonds."1  So  Pliny  the  younger  condemns  the 
Christians  in  his  letter  to  Trajan,  although  he  acknow- 
ledges their  innocence.  This,  it  is  true,  is  not  the  case 
with  Tacitus ;  he  seems  rather  to  regard  the  Christians 
as  guilty,  whether  or  no  they  were  the  authors  of  the 
fire.  But  he  allows  the  spectators  to  be  touched  with 
pity  for  the  executed  Christians,  and  thus  awakens  a 
sympathetic  feeling  for  them  in  the  readers  of  his 
narrative. 

It  is  said,  however,  that  Tacitus,  "  on  account  of  the 
difficulty  of  his  style  and  his  whole  attitude,  was  not 
generally  read  by  Christians,"  so  that  his  text  is,  "  in  the 

1  Acts  xxvi,  31. 


THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES  27 

general  opinion  of  experts,  the  freest  from  corruption  of 
all  the  ancient  writings."  So  at  least  von  Soden  assures 
us  (p.  11).  In  this,  however,  he  is  merely  repeating  the 
opinion  of  Gibbon.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  none  of  the 
works  of  Tacitus  have  come  down  to  us  without  inter- 
polations. This  supposed  "  purity  of  the  text  of  Tacitus 
as  shown  by  the  oldest  manuscripts  "  exists  only  in  the 
imagination  of  Gibbon  and  those  who  follow  him.  It  is, 
further,  not  true  that  the  Christians  did  not  read  Tacitus. 
We  have  a  number  of  instances  in  the  first  centuries  of 
Christian  writers  who  are  acquainted  with  Tacitus,  such 
as  Tertullian,  Jerome,  Orosius,  Sidonius  Apollinaris, 
Sulpicius  Severus,  and  Cassiodorus.  It  is  only  in  the 
course  of  the  Middle  Ages  that  this  acquaintance  with 
the  Roman  historian  is  gradually  lost ;  and  this  not  on 
account  of,  but  in  spite  of,  the  passage  in  Tacitus  on  the 
Christians.  This  testimony  of  the  Koman  historian  to 
the  supposed  first  persecution  of  the  Christians  would  be 
very  valuable  to  them  for  many  reasons. 

Are  there,  however,  no  witnesses  to  the  genuineness  of 
the  passages  of  Tacitus  in  early  Christian  literature? 
There  is  the  letter  of  Clement  of  Eome  belonging  to  the 
end  of  the  first  century.  According  to  Eusebius,1  it  was 
sent  by  Clement,  the  secretary  of  the  Apostle  Peter,  and 
the  third  or  fourth  bishop  of  Rome,  to  the  community  at 
Corinth,  in  the  name  of  the  Eoman  community  ;  as  is 
also  stated  by  Hegesippus  (c.  150)  and  Dionysius  of 
Corinth.2  The  point  is  so  uncertain,  nevertheless,  that 
such  distinguished  authorities  as  Sernler,  Baur,  Schwegler, 
Zeller,  Volkmar,3  Hausrath,4  Loman,5  Van  Manen,  Von 
der  Burgh,  Van  Eysing,6  and  Steck,7  have  disputed  the 

1  Eccl.  Hist.  Ill,  16.  2  Op.  cit.  iv,  22,  1-3  ;  iv,  23. 

3  See  his  essay  on  "Clement  of  Rome  and  the  Subsequent  Period," 
Tilbinger  Theol.  Jahrbiicher,  1856,  287-369. 

4  NeutestamentL  Zeitgesch.,111,  99,  Anm.  5. 

"  Quaestiones  Paulinse,"  in  Theol.  Tijdschrift,  1883,  p.  14,  etc. 

6  Onderzoek  naar  de  achtlieidvan  Clemens'  ersten  brief  aan  de  CorintJiers, 
1908. 

7  Der  Galaterbrief  nach  seiner  Echtheit  untersucht,  1888,  p.  294,  etc. 


28  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

genuineness  of  the  letter;  and  it  was  reserved  for  the 
modern  believers  in  Jesus  to  discover  grounds  for  regard- 
ing it  as  genuine.  Volkmar  puts  the  letter  in  the  year 
125 ;  Loman,  Van  Manen,  and  Steck  do  not  admit  its 
composition  earlier  than  the  year  140.  The  letter  cannot, 
therefore,  be  regarded  as  a  reliable  document  on  that 
account. 

But  what  do  we  learn  about  the  Neronian  persecution 
from  the  letter  of  Clement  ?  "  Out  of  jealousy  and  envy," 
he  writes  to  the  Corinthians,  "  the  greatest  and  straightest 
pillars  were  persecuted  and  fought  even  to  death ";  as 
in  the  case  of  Peter,  "  who,  through  the  envy  of  the 
wicked,  incurred,  not  one  or  two,  but  many  dangers,  and 
so  passed  to  his  place  in  glory  after  rendering  his  testi- 
mony," and  Paul,  "  who  showed  the  faithful  the  way  to 
persevere  to  the  end ;  seven  times  was  he  imprisoned,  he 
was  banished,  stoned,  he  went  as  a  herald  to  the  east 
and  the  west,  and  he  reaped  great  glory  by  his  faith. 
The  whole  world  has  attained  to  a  knowledge  of  justice ; 
he  went  even  to  the  farthest  parts  of  the  west,  and  gave 
his  testimony  before  them  that  held  power.  Then  was 
he  taken  out  of  the  world  and  went  to  the  holy  place,  the 
greatest  model  of  patience."1 

It  is  clear  that  we  have  here  no  reference  to  the  per- 
secution of  the  Christians  under  Nero.  It  is  not  even 
stated  that  the  apostles  named  met  with  a  violent  death 
on  account  of  their  faith,  as  the  word  "  martyresas  " 
("  after  rendering  his  testimony  ")  need  not  by  any  means 
be  understood  to  mean  a  testimony  of  blood,  because  the 
word  "  martyr  "  originally  means  only  a  witness  to  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  faith  in  the  general  sense,  and  is 
equivalent  to  "  confessor,"  and  was  only  later  applied  to 
those  who  sealed  their  faith  by  a  violent  death.2  If  the 
expression  in  the  above  text  is  usually  taken  to  refer  to 

1  Neutestatamentl.  Apokryphen,  edited  by  Hennecko,  1904,  ch.  v. 

2  See  Hochart,  Etudes  au  Sujet  do  la  Persecution  des  Chretiens  sous 
Neron,  1885. 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES  29 

the  execution  of  the  apostles  under  Nero,  it  is  not  because 
Clemens  says  anything  about  this  execution,  but  merely 
because,  according  to  Christian  tradition,  Peter  and  Paul 
are  supposed  to  have  been  put  to  death  at  the  time  of  the 
Neronian  persecution.  This  tradition,  however,  is  not 
only  relatively  late,  but  extremely  doubtful  in  itself. 
That  Peter  was  never  in  Home,  and  so  did  not  meet  his 
end  there  under  Nero,  must  be  regarded  as  certain  after 
the  research  of  Lipsius.1  As  regards  Paul,  the  tradition 
is,  according  to  Frey,2  certainly  not  earlier  than  the  end 
of  the  fifth  century  ;  before  that  time  it  was  certainly 
said  that  he  and  Peter  died  under  Nero,  but  not  that  Paul 
was  a  victim  of  the  Neronian  persecution.8  How,  then, 
could  the  Roman  Clemens  about  the  end  of  the  first 
century  connect  the  death  of  the  two  apostles  with  the 
Neronian  persecution  ?  That  he  does  so  is  supposed  to 
be  shown  by  the  succeeding  words,  in  which  he  says  : 
"  These  men  were  accompanied  on  the  heavenly  pil- 
grimage by  a  great  number  of  the  elect,  who  have  given 
us  the  noblest  example  of  endurance  in  ill-treatment  and 
torment,  which  they  suffered  from  the  envious.  On 
account  of  envy  women  were  persecuted,  Danaids  and 
Dirces,  and  had  to  endure  frightful  and  shameful  ill- 
treatment  ;  yet  they  maintained  their  faith  firmly,  and 
won  a  glorious  reward,  though  they  were  feeble  of  body." 
"  These  words,"  says  Arnold,  in  his  work  Die  Neronische 
Christenverfolgung  (1888),  which  supports  the  genuine- 
ness of  Annals,  xv,  44,  "  are  seen  at  a  glance  to  be  a 
Christian  complement  of  the  description  of  Tacitus;  he 
also  speaks  of  *  most  exquisite  tortures,'  of  the  shame  and 
derision  with  which  the  victims  were  treated  when  they 
were  put  to  death,  and  of  the  satisfaction  it  gave  to  the 
crowds'  lust  for  spectacles."4  But  would  Tacitus,  with 

1  See  his  Chronologic  der  Rom.  BiscJiofe,  p.  162,  and  Die  Quellen  der 
Rom.  Petrussage,  1872. 

2  Die  letzten  Lebensjahre  des  Pauhis  :  Bibl.  Zeit-  u.  Streitfragen,  1910. 
8  Loc.  cit.  p.  8  ;  see  also  Neutestamentl.  ApokrypJien,  p.  365. 

4  Work  quoted,  p.  37. 


30  THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES 

his  well-known  taste  for  spectacular  stories  of  that  kind, 
have  refrained  from  giving  us  the  ghastly  picture  of  the 
Dirces  torn  on  the  horns  of  oxen?  And  what  is  the 
meaning  of  these  Danaids,  in  whose  form  Christian 
women  are  said  to  have  been  shamed  and  put  to  death  ? 
Can  anyone  seriously  believe  that  the  patient  water- 
drawing  daughters  of  Danaos  would  provide  a  fitting 
spectacle  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  crowd's  lust  for  dis- 
play and  blood  ?  Or  does  the  writer  of  the  letter  merely 
intend  by  the  words  "  Danaids  and  Dirces,"  which 
have  no  connection  with  what  precedes  and  follows  in 
the  text,  to  set  the  Christian  women-martyrs  in  contrast 
to  the  frivolous  performers  of  the  ancient  myth  ?  Further, 
what  does  he  mean  when  he  says  that  these  numerous 
men  and  women  were  ill-treated  "  out  of  jealousy  and 
envy,"  and  puts  the  lot  of  the  Christians  in  this  respect 
on  the  same  footing  as  that  of  Cain  and  Abel,  Jacob  and 
Esau,  Joseph  and  his  brothers,  Moses  and  the  Egyptians, 
Aaron  and  Miriam,  Dathan  and  Abiram,  and  David  and 
Saul  ?  Kenan  suggests  the  hatred  of  the  Jews  for  the 
Christians ;  but  Joel  has  successfully  defended  his  co- 
religionists against  such  a  charge,  and  Tacitus  does  not 
give  it  the  least  support.  Arnold  suggests  "  denuncia- 
tions by  Christians  with  party  passions."1  According  to 
Lactantius,  it  was  Nero's  jealousy  at  the  success  of  their 
propaganda  that  induced  the  emperor  to  persecute  the 
Christians.  But  is  it  not  possible  that  the  writer  of  the 
letter  had  seen  the  Acts  of  Peter  and  other  apocryphal 
writings,  according  to  which  Simon  the  magician,  who 
had  entered  upon  a  struggle  with  Peter  out  of  jealousy, 
may  have  been  the  cause  of  the  persecution  of  the 
Christians  ?  And  may  not  the  whole  ambiguous  passage, 
with  its  rhetorical  generalities,  not  really  refer  to  the 
Neronian  persecution,  but  rather  throw  back  upon  the 
time  of  Nero  the  martyrdoms  that  Christian  men  and 

1  Work  quoted,  p.  69. 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES  31 

women  had  suffered  in  later  persecutions  ?  In  any  case, 
it  does  not  follow  from  the  letter  of  Clemens  that  the 
"number  of  the  elect"  who  "  had  endured  shame  and 
torture  on  account  of  jealousy,"  and  been  "  added  to  the 
company  "  of  the  apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  died  at  the 
same  time  as  they.  This  assumption  arises  simply  from 
an  association  of  ideas  between  the  death  of  the  apostles 
and  the  supposed  Neronian  persecution — an  association 
that  in  all  probability  did  not  exist  in  the  time  of  Clemens. 
How  could  the  supposed  Clemens,  about  the  year  95, 
make  Peter  and  Paul  die  under  Nero,  when  the  former 
had  never  been  in  Rome,  and  the  latter  did  not  die  until 
after  64  ?  And  how  can  the  very  scholars  who  dispute 
the  presence  of  Peter  in  Borne  and  do  not  admit  the  death 
of  Paul  in  the  Neronian  persecution  regard  the  letter  of 
Clemens  as  genuine,  and  as  establishing  the  Neronian 
persecution  ? 

This,  then,  is  the  situation  :  either  the  letter  of  Clemens 
was  really  written  about  the  year  95,  and  in  that  case  the 
supposed  reference  to  the  Neronian  persecution  must,  if  it 
really  is  such,  be  regarded  as  a  later  interpolation ;  or  this 
reference  is  an  original  part  of  the  letter,  and  in  that  case 
the  letter  cannot  have  been  written  until  the  tradition  as 
to  the  death  of  the  apostles  in  the  Neronian  persecution 
had  taken  shape — that  is  to  say,  not  before  the  middle  of 
the  second  century.  In  either  case,  the  so-called  letter  of 
Clemens  is  no  evidence  of  the  fact  of  a  considerable 
persecution  of  the  Christians  under  Nero.1 

1  As  the  reference  of  the  part  quoted  to  the  Neronian  persecution  is  the 
only  detail  for  fixing  the  date  of  the  letter,  if  we  refuse  to  admit  the 
passage  the  date  of  the  letter  is  altogether  uncertain,  and  it  may  belong 
to  the  fourth  century  just  as  well  as  the  first — the  "great  century  of 
literary  forgeries"  (Antiqua  Mater,  p.  304).  The  reference  in  I,  1,  where 
there  is  question  of  perils  and  hardships  that  have  suddenly  come  upon 
the  Roman  community,  to  the  Domitian  persecution  in  the  year  93  is 
anything  but  certain.  It  is  by  no  means  proved  that  the  so-called 
Domitian  persecution  was  a  persecution  of  the  Christians.  The  text  of 
Dio  Cassius  (67, 14)  which  is  relied  upon  points  at  the  most  to  a  persecution 
of  those  who,  like  Flavius  Clemens,  the  emperor's  cousin,  leaned  to 
"  atheism  "  or  the  Jewish  faith.  "  If  we  rely  on  Roman  sources,  we  find 
no  persecution  of  the  Christians  under  Domitian  ;  if  we  rely  on  Christian 


32  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

The  belief  that  the  Neronian  persecution  of  the  Chris- 
tians belongs  to  the  realm  of  fable  is  further  confirmed  by 
the  fact  that  the  other  witnesses  that  are  quoted  for  it  are 
just  as  vague  and  indecisive.  What  propagandist  material 
would  not  the  details  of  this  first  persecution  of  their  faith 
have  furnished  to  the  early  Christians !  Yet  what  trace 
of  it  do  we  find  in  them  ?  Let  us  take  the  evidence  of 
Melito  of  Sardis.  In  his  writing  to  the  Emperor  Marcus 
Aurelius,  in  which  he  endeavours  to  explain  to  the 
Emperor  how  beneficial  Christianity  had  been  to  Roman 
power,  we  read  :  "  The  only  emperors  who,  seduced  by 
evil-minded  men,  sought  to  bring  our  religion  into  evil 
repute,  were  Nero  and  Domitian,  and  from  their  time  the 
mendacious  calumny  of  the  Christians  has  continued, 
according  to  the  habit  of  people  to  believe  imputations 
without  proof."  In  these  words,  which,  moreover,  are 
only  known  to  us  from  Eusebius,1  there  is  no  question  of 
a  general  persecution  of  the  Christians  under  Nero ;  it  is 
merely  stated  that  Nero  tried  to  bring  the  Christians  into 
bad  repute.  Dionysius  of  Corinth  (about  170)  also,  and 
the  presbyter  Caius,  who  lived  inline  time  of  the  Roman 
bishop  Zephyrinus  (about  200),  affirm  only,  according  to 
the  same  Eusebius,2  that  Peter  and  Paul  died  the  death 
of  martyrs  "  about  the  same  time  "  at  Rome,3  which  does 

sources,  the  persecution  goes  far  beyond  Rome,  as,  according  to  Hegesippus, 
the  grandsons  of  Judas,  being  relatives  of  Christ,  were  brought  from 
Palestine  to  Rome  and  condemned,  and,  according  to  Eusebius  and, 
possibly,  Irenaeus,  the  apostle  John  was  then  banished  to  Patmos.  In  this 
case  it  cannot  be  said  that  Rome  alone  was  affected  by  the  persecution, 
and  so  there  is  no  analogy  with  the  description  given  in  the  letter  "  (Steck, 
work  quoted,  p.  297).  It  seems,  then,  that  it  was  the  imagination  of  the 
apologists  and  fathers  of  the  Church,  who  wanted  to  make  the  sufferings 
of  Christianity  begin  as  early  as  possible,  that  deduced  from  the  letter  this 
persecution  of  the  Christians  as  such.  (Br.  Bauer,  work  quoted,  p.  238  ; 
also  see  Joel,  work  quoted,  II,  45.) 

1  Ecclesiastical  History,  VI,  33.  2  Ibid.  II,  28. 

8  In  this  connection  it  may  be  observed  that  all  these  references 
in  Eusebius  must  be  regarded  with  the  greatest  suspicion.  This  man, 
whom  Jakob  Burckhardt  has  called  "  the  first  thoroughly  dishonest 
historian  of  antiquity,"  acts  so  deliberately  in  the  interest  of  the  power  of 
the  Church  and  the  creation  and  strengthening  of  tradition  that  far  too 
much  notice  is  taken  of  his  historical  statements.  "After  the  many 
falsifications,  suppressions,  and  fictions  which  have  been  proved  in  his 


THE  KOMAN  WITNESSES  33 

not  necessarily  mean  on  the  same  day  or  the  same 
occasion,  or  that  the  "  trophies  of  their  victory  "  are  to 
be  seen  on  the  Vatican  and  the  road  to  Ostia.  Of  the 
Neronian  persecution  they  tell  us  nothing.  In  Tertullian's 
Apologeticum1  we  read  that  Nero,  cruel  to  all,  was  the 
first  to  draw  the  imperial  sword  against  the  Christian  sect 
which  then  flourished  at  Borne.  He  thinks  it  an  honour 
to  himself  and  his  co-religionists  to  have  been  condemned 
by  such  a  prince,  since  everyone  who  knows  him  will  see 
that  nothing  was  condemned  by  Nero  that  was  not 
especially  good.  But  there  is  nothing  in  his  words  to 
show  that  he  was  thinking  of  anything  besides  the  death 
of  the  apostles  Peter  and  Paul.  Indeed,  he  says  expressly 
that  the  apostles,  scattered  over  the  world  at  the  master's 
command,  after  many  sufferings  at  length  shed  their 
blood  at  Rome  through  the  cruelty  of  Nero,  and  he  urges 
the  pagans  to  read  the  proofs  of  this  in  their  own 
"Commentaries";  which  is  much  the  same  as  when 
Tertullian  refers  to  the  Roman  archives  those  who  doubt 
the  gospel  narrative  of  the  execution  of  Jesus.2  We  read 
much  the  same  in  the  same  writer's  Scorp.,  ch.  xv: 
"  Nero  was  the  first  to  stain  the  early  faith  with  blood. 
Then  was  Peter  (according  to  the  word  of  Christ)  girded 
by  another,  as  he  was  fixed  to  the  cross.  Then  did  Paul 
obtain  the  Roman  right  of  citizenship  in  a  higher  sense, 
as  he  was  born  again  there  by  his  noble  martyrdom."  : 

There  remains  only  the  witness  of  Eusebius  and  of 
Revelation.  Eusebius,  however,  merely  reproduces4  the 
statement  of  Tertullian  that  Nero  was  the  first  of  the 
emperors  to  become  an  open  enemy  of  the  divine  religion. 
He  writes  :  "  Thus  Nero  raged  even  against  the  apostles, 

work,  hie  has  no  right  to  be  put  forward  as  a  decisive  authority  ;  and  to 
these  faults  we  must  add  a  consciously  perverse  manner  of  expression, 
deliberate  bombast,  and  many  equivocations,  so  that  the  reader  stumbles 
upon  trapdoors  and  pitfalls  in  the  most  important  passages."  (J.  Burck- 
hardt,  Leben  Konstantins,  2nd  ed.  1860,  pp.  307,  335,  347.) 
1  Ch.  v.  2  ch>  xxi. 

3  See  also  De  Prascriptione,  cap.  36,  and  Adversus  Marcion,  iv,  5. 

4  Ecclesiastical  History,  ii,  28. 

D 


34  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

and  so  declared  himself  the  first  of  the  arch-enemies  of 
God.  It  is  recorded  that  under  him  Paul  was  beheaded 
at  Rome  and  Peter  was  crucified  under  him."  In  proof 
of  this  he  points  to  the  fact  that  the  names  of  Peter  and 
Paul  have  remained  until  his  time  on  an  inscription  in 
the  burying -place  at  Rome.  As  to  Revelation,  the 
commonly  assumed  connection  between  it  and  the 
Neronian  persecution  is  so  little  proved  that  Arnold 
speaks  of  it  as  "  a  most  unhappy  suggestion  "  to  associate 
the  "great  crowd"  of  Christians  executed  under  Nero, 
according  to  Tacitus,  with  the  vision  of  John,  in  which 
the  seer  beholds  a  vast  multitude,  whom  no  man  can 
count,  of  all  nations,  peoples,  and  tongues,  bearing  palms 
and  clothed  in  white  garments  before  the  throne  of  the 
Most  High.1  The  Christian  parts  of  the  so-called  Sybilline 
Oracles,  which  are  supposed  to  have  been  written  in  part 
shortly  after  this  event,  have,  as  Arnold  says,  no  relation 
to  the  Neronian  persecution,  even  where  there  would  be 
the  greatest  occasion.  They  speak  often  enough  of  the 
return  of  Nero  and  his  cruelties,  but  he  is  never  repre- 
sented, as  he  is  afterwards  in  Eusebius,  as  the  enemy  of 
God  and  Christ  and  the  persecutor  of  the  early  community. 
It  seems  very  doubtful  if  the  poets  knew  anything  what- 
ever of  such  an  occurrence.2  Hence  the  idea  that 
Revelation  is  the  Christian  "  counter-manifesto  to  the 
Neronian  persecution "  is  of  no  value.  Ecclesiastical 
tradition  assigns  Revelation  to  the  year  90  A.D.  When 
recent  theological  scholarship  assigns  it  to  the  year  65,  it 
is  assuming  that  the  work  refers  to  the  burning  of  Rome 
in  64.  In  that  case  it  is  clearly  a  vicious  circle  to  infer 
the  historicity  of  the  Neronian  persecution  from  the  fact 
that  Revelation  was  written  shortly  after  64.  How  little 
was  definitely  known  of  such  a  persecution  in  the  first 
Christian  centuries  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that 
Eusebius  puts  it  in  the  year  67.  Justin,  in  spite  of  his 

1  Revelation  vii,  9.  2  Work  quoted,  pp.  75-86. 


THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES  35 

praise  of  the  courage  and  steadfastness  of  the  Christians 
in  their  martyrdoms,  does  not  say  a  word  about  it.  Even 
the  later  Acts  of  Peter  are  silent  about  it,  while  other 
writings  go  so  far  as  to  make  Nero  a  friend  of  the 
Christians,  and  say  that  he  condemned  Pontius  Pilate 
to  death  for  the  execution  of  Christ.  Origen  (185-254) 
says  in  his  work  against  Celsus1  that,  instead  of  the 
"multitudo  ingens  "  of  Tacitus,  the  number  of  those  who 
suffered  death  for  the  faith  was  inconsiderable ! 

But  does  not  Suetonius  speak  in  his  Life  of  Nero 
(ch.  xvi)  of  a  chastisement  of  the  Christians  by  the 
emperor  as  a  class  of  men  full  of  a  new  and  criminal 
superstition  (genus  hominum  superstitionis  novae  ac 
maleficae)  ?  It  is  to  be  noted  that  he  in  no  way  connects 
this  event  with  the  burning  of  Koine,  but  with  other 
misdeeds  that  were  punished  by  Nero.  Arnold  has 
pointed  out2  that  this  biographer  does  not  follow  a 
chronological  order  in  his  work  or  observe  the  internal 
connection  of  events,  but  classes  the  deeds  of  the  emperor 
as  good  or  bad,  and  so  puts  the  burning  among  the 
latter  and  the  punishment  of  the  Christians  among  the 
former.  However  that  may  be,  no  reason  is  given  why 
Nero  should  punish  the  Christians  on  account  of  their 
religion.  It  is  expressly  allowed  by  historians3  that  the 
Roman  emperors  of  that  time  were  extremely  tolerant  of 
foreign  religions.  Suetonius  himself  says  that  Nero 
showed  the  utmost  indifference,  even  contempt,  in  regard 
to  religious  sects.4  Even  afterwards  the  Christians  were 
not  persecuted  for  their  faith,  but  for  political  reasons, 
for  their  contempt  of  the  Roman  State  and  emperor,  and 
as  disturbers  of  the  unity  and  peace  of  the  empire.6  What 
reason,  then,  can  Nero  have  had  to  proceed  against  the 
Christians,  hardly  distinguishable  from  the  Jews,  as  a 
new  and  criminal  sect  ? 

1  iii,  8.  2  Work  quoted,  p.  38. 

1  See  H.  Schiller,  Geschichtc  der  Rom.  Kaiscrzcit,  i,  441. 

4  Cap.  46.  5  Arnold,  work  quoted,  p.  74. 


36  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

Schiller  also  thinks  that  the  Roman  authorities  can 
have  had  no  reason  to  inflict  special  punishment  on  the 
new  faith.  "  How  could  the  non-initiated  know  what 
were  the  concerns  of  a  comparatively  small  religious 
sect,  which  was  connected  with  Judaism  and  must  have 
seemed  to  the  impartial  observer  wholly  identical  with  it  ? 
Apart  from  Jerusalem,  hardly  any  community  at  this  time 
had  so  pronounced  a  Judaeo-Christian  character  as  that 
of  Rome."1  If,  moreover,  it  were  supposed  that  by  the 
"  Christians  "  of  Suetonius  we  must  understand  the  Jews 
excited  by  messianic  expectations — "  Messianists  "  who, 
with  their  belief  in  the  approaching  end  of  the  world  and 
its  destruction  by  fire,  made  light  of  the  burning  of 
Rome  and  so  incurred  the  hatred  of  the  people — the 
connection  between  them  and  the  historical  Jesus  would 
be  called  into  question,  and  the  evidential  value  of  the 
passage  of  Suetonius  for  the  existence  of  Jesus  would  be 
destroyed.  In  fact,  this  supposition  is  negatived  by  the 
complete  silence  of  Josephus  as  to  any  such  misfortune 
of  his  co-religionists,  though  he  does  not  otherwise  spare 
the  misdeeds  of  the  emperor.  Paulus  Orosius  also,  the 
friend  and  admirer  of  Augustine,  relies  expressly  on 
Suetonius  for  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  Rome 
under  Claudius,  and  even  mentions  the  Neronian  perse- 
cution, which,  according  to  him,  spread  over  every 
province  of  the  empire,2  but  for  this  does  not  quote  the 
witness  of  either  Tacitus  or  Suetonius.  When  we  further 
reflect  that  neither  Trajan  nor  Pliny  mentions  the 
Neronian  persecution  of  the  Christians  in  his  corre- 
spondence, although  there  was  every  occasion  to  do  so, 
since  they  were  discussing  the  judgment  and  treatment 
of  the  Bithynian  Christians,  we  can  hardly  do  otherwise 
than  regard  the  passage  in  Suetonius's  Life  of  Nero  as 
a  later  interpolation. 


Work  quoted,  p.  585.  2  A(licrsnx  t'tiijuiiot;  Jlixtoriu",  vii,  1 


THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES  37 

II.    ARGUMENTS   AGAINST    THE    GENUINENESS. 

(a)  General  Observations. — As  regards  the  passage  in 
Tacitus,  the  simple  credulity  with  which  it  had  hitherto 
been  accepted  led  to  a  sceptical  attitude,  not  only  abroad, 
where  the  Frenchman  Hochart,1  the  Dutchman  Pierson,2 
the  English  author  of  Antiqua  Mater,  Edwin  Johnson, 
the  American  William  Benjamin  Smith  in  Ecce  Deus 
(1911),  and  others  assailed  its  genuineness,  but  also  in 
German  science.  Besides  Bruno  Bauer,8  H.  Schiller 
has  drawn  attention  to  certain  difficulties  in  the 
Tacitean  tradition  that  had  been  overlooked ;  and  even 
Arnold  acknowledges,  though  he  endeavours  to  show 
the  unsoundness  of  the  critical  view  of  the  passage, 
that  "  this  reference,  which  had  hitherto  been  regarded 
as  quite  simple  and  easy  to  understand,  has  been  very  little 
understood."4  According  to  Hochart  the  passage  contains 
as  many  insoluble  difficulties  as  it  does  words.5  This  is 
especially  true  of  the  sentence  :  "  Igitur  primum  correpti, 
qui  fatebantur,  deinde  indicio  eorum  multitude  ingens, 
haud  proinde  in  crimine  incendii  quam  odio  humani 
generis  convicti  sunt."  Schiller  calls  this  sentence  "one 
of  the  most  difficult  in  this  sententious  writer,"  and  adds : 
"  One  could  almost  believe  that  he  deliberately  left  a 
riddle  to  posterity  which  he  had  failed  to  solve  himself."6 
We  have  first  the  "  multitude  ingens  "  of  the  Christians. 
Even  Arnold  sees  a  "rhetorical  exaggeration"  in  these 
words ;  it  is  opposed  to  all  that  we  know  of  the  spread  of 
the  new  faith  in  Kome  at  the  time.7  The  question  is, 
who  exaggerated — Tacitus,  who  would  scarcely  take  any 
interest  in  the  number  of  the  Christians,  or  a  later 
Christian  interpolator,  who  would  naturally  have  such  an 

1  Etudes  ait  sujet  de  la  persecution  des  chrdtiens  sons  Nfron,  1885  ;  De 
r Authenticity  des  Annales  et  des  Histoires  de  Tacite,  1890 ;  Nouvelles  Con- 
siderations an  sujet  des  Annales  et  des  Histoires  de  Tacite,  1897. 

2  Bergrede,  p.  87.  3  Christ  us  und  die  Cd'saren,  p.  150. 
4  Work  quoted,  vi.                            5  Etudes  au  sujet,  etc.,  p.  220. 

G  Work  quoted,  p.  435. 

7  Work  quoted,  p.  40.     See  also  Schiller,  work  quoted,  p.  436,  note. 


38  THE  KOMAN  WITNESSES 

interest,  in  order  to  demonstrate  the  rapid  spread  and 
marvellous  attractiveness  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  ? 

Then  there  is  the  word  "  fatebantur."  Theological 
writers  like  Renan,  Weizsacker,  etc.,  refer  the  expression 
to  the  belief  of  those  who  were  captured,  and  so  make 
them  out  to  have  been  persecuted  on  account  of  their 
Christianity.  Von  Soden  also  translates  it :  "  All  who 
openly  confessed  Christianity  were  at  once  arrested,"  etc. 
(p.  11).  Schiller,  however,  rightly  holds  that  it  is  not 
probable,  in  view  of  the  close  life  of  the  Christians  at  the 
time,  that  some  of  them,  apart  from  all  the  others,  "  had 
openly  professed  a  doctrine  that  was  not  yet  a  peculiar 
creed,  and  would  be  intelligible  to  nobody."1  Others, 
therefore,  such  as  Arnold,  think  that  the  word  "  fate- 
bantur "  refers  rather  to  the  crime  of  setting  fire  to 
Home.  In  that  case,  there  would,  as  many  historians, 
such  as  Neumann,  admit,  be  no  question  of  a  persecution 
of  Christians  as  such,  but  merely  of  a  police  procedure.2 

In  the  next  place,  however,  the  Christians  are  not 
so  much  "  convicted  "  of  the  fire  as  of  "  hatred  of  the 
human  race."  Holtzmann  (in  Sybel's  Historischer 
Zeitschrift)  has  translated  this  phrase  as  "completely 
devoid  of  any  humane  and  political  culture,"  "  so  that 
they  might  be  relieved  of  considerations  of  humanity  in 
dealing  with  them."  Schiller  sees  in  it  a  reference  to 
the  custom  of  the  Christians  to  withdraw  from  all  inter- 
course with  the  world,  celebrate  forbidden  festivals  in 
secret  meetings,  and  never  sacrifice  to  the  genius  of  the 
emperor.8  Arnold  conceives  the  expression  as  "  an  oppo- 
sition on  principle  to  the  omnipotence  of  the  Roman 
State."4  But,  as  Hochart  rightly  asks,  could  Tacitus, 
who  never  took  seriously  the  faith  of  the  Jews,  and  pre- 
sented the  Jewish  and,  according  to  Tertullian,  even  the 
Christian  God  to  his  readers  as  a  deity  with  an  ass's  head, 

1  Work  quoted,  p.  435. 

2  See  also  H.  Schiller,  Gcschichtc  dor  rim.  Kaiscrzeit,  I,  446-50. 

3  Work  quoted,  p.  436.  4  Work  quoted,  p.  23. 


THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES  39 

regard  the  existence  of  a  Jewish  sect,  which  differed  in 
no  respect  from  the  Jews  in  the  eyes  of  the  Komans,  as 
so  menacing  to  the  welfare  of  the  empire  that  he  must 
call  down  on  it  the  full  anger  of  the  gods  of  Olympus  ? 
"It  is  inconceivable  that  the  followers  of  Jesus  formed  a 
community  in  the  city  at  that  time  of  sufficient  importance 
to  attract  public  attention  and  the  ill-feeling  of  the  people. 
It  is  more  probable  that  the  Christians  were  extremely 
discreet  in  their  behaviour,  as  the  circumstances,  especially 
of  early  propaganda,  required.  Clearly  we  have  here  a 
state  of  things  that  belongs  to  a  later  date  than  that  of 
Tacitus,  when  the  increase  and  propagandist  zeal  of  the 
Christians  irritated  the  other  religions  against  them,  and 
their  resistance  to  the  laws  of  the  State  caused  the 
authorities  to  proceed  against  them."1  The  interpolator, 
Hochart  thinks,  transferred  to  the  days  of  Nero  that 
general  hatred  of  the  Christians  of  which  Tertullian 
speaks.  Indeed,  the  French  scholar  thinks  it  not  impos- 
sible that  the  phrase  "  odium  human!  generis  "  was  simply 
taken  from  Tertullian  and  put  in  the  mouth  of  Tacitus. 
Tertullian  tells  us  that  in  his  time  the  Christians  were 
accused  of  being  "  enemies  of  the  human  race  "  (paene 
omnes  cives  Christianos  habendo  sed  hostes  maluistis 
vocare  generis  humani  potius  quam  erroris  human!)  .* 

1  Hochart,  work  quoted,  p.  214. 

2  Apol.  37.      How  just  this  charge  against  the  Christians  was  in  the 
time  of  Tertullian  may  be  gathered  from  Hausrath's  excellent  essay  on 
"  The  Church  Fathers  of  the  Second  Century  "  in  his  Kleine  Schriften  reli- 
gionsgeschiclitlicJien  Inhalts  (1883),  especially  p.  71.     It  is  enough  to  recall 
the  words  ola  pious  Father  of  the  Church  in  his  work  On  Spectacles  (cap.  30) , 
where  he  addresses  a  pagan  fellow-citizen,  in  a  sweet  foretaste  of  vengeance : 
"  Spectacles  are  your  chief  delight ;   wait,  then,  for  the  greatest  of  all 
spectacles,  the  final  and  eternal  judgment  of  the  world.      How  I  shall 
admire,  how  I  shall  laugh  and  be  delighted,  when  I  hear  so  many  proud 
Caesars,  whom  men  had  turned  into  gods,  whining  in  the  deepest  abyss  of 
darkness  ;  so  many  magistrates,  who  persecuted  the  name  of  the  Lord, 
melting  in  a  more  furious  fire  than  any  they  had  lit  for  the  Christians ; 
so  many  wise  philosophers,  who  taught  their  pupils  that  God  cared  about 
nothing,  burning  in  the  glowing  flames  ;  so  many  esteemed  poets  standing 
and  shivering  before  the  judgment-seat,  not  of  Khadamanthus  or  Minos, 
but  of  Christ !     Then  will  the  tragedians  roar  louder  than  on  the  stage, 
and  the  player  coo  more  seductively  when  he  is  softened  by  the  flames, 
and  the  chariot-driver  be  seen  careering — red  as  fii-e  on  the  flaming  wheel. 


40  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

And  even  the  "  Thyestean  meals "  and  "  (Edipodic 
minglings,"  of  which  Arnold  is  reminded  by  the  circum- 
stance that  Tacitus  ascribes  those  horrors  and  scandals 
to  the  Christians,  hardly  suit  the  age  of  Nero,  and  have 
all  the  appearance  of  a  projection  of  later  charges  against 
the  Christians  into  the  sixties  of  the  first  century — sup- 
posing, that  is  to  say,  that  the  writer  was  thinking  of  them 
at  all  in  the  expression  quoted.  It  cannot  be  repeated  too 
often  that  charges  of  this  kind,  if,  as  is  usually  gathered 
from  similar  expressions  of  Justin  and  Tertullian,  they 
were  really  put  forward  by  the  Jews,1  have  no  ground  or 
reason  whatever  in  the  historical  relations  between  the 
two  during  the  first  century,  especially  before  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem.  The  schism  between  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians had  not  yet  taken  place,  and  the  hatred  of  the  two 
for  each  other  was  as  yet  by  no  means  such  as  to  justify 
such  appalling  accusations.2  If,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
are  supposed  to  be  brought  by  the  pagans  against  the 
Christians,  there  is  a  complete  absence  of  motive.8 

But  I  will  not  look  at  these  ;  rather  will  I  turn  my  insatiable  gaze  upon 

those  who   made  sport  of  the  person  of  the  Lord From  seeing  and 

rejoicing  over  these  no  prsetor,  no  consul,  no  quaestor,  and  no  priest  can 
prevent  us.  These  things,  by  our  faith  in  the  spirit  and  our  imagina- 
tion, we  already  have  ever  present  to  us."  "It  must  be  admitted," 
Hausrath  observes  on  this,  "  that 'this  kind  of  '  Christian  charity  '  has  an 
unmistakable  resemblance  to  the  'odium  humani  generis'  with  which  the 
pagans  reproached  the  new  sect"  (work  quoted,  p.  92).  If  Roman  justice 
proceeded  with  severity  against  people  of  this  temper,  we  can  hardly  blame 
it,  any  more  than  we  should  blame  a  modern  State  for  its  severe  punish- 
ment of  anarchists.  In  any  case,  the  number  of  the  martyrs  has,  as 
Hausrath  shows,  been  fearfully  exaggerated  on  the  ecclesiastical  side.  It 
appears  that  during  the  first  three  Christian  centuries  there  were  no  more 
than  1,500  people  put  to  death  on  account  of  their  faith  (?),  whereas  Duke 
Alba  slaughtered  more  than  100,000  Protestants  in  the  Netherlands,  and 
the  St.  Bartholomew  massacre  was  responsible  for  2,000  deaths  in  Paris 
and  more  than  20,000  in  the  whole  of  France,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
savagery  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  crusades  against  heretics,  such  as  the 
Albigenses.  Moreover,  many  of  these  Christians  often  sought  death  out 
of  religious  fanaticism,  irritated  the  authorities  to  proceed  against  them 
when  they  had  no  need  to  do  so,  and  provoked,  by  their  own  behaviour, 
the  cruelties  of  the  persecutors  which  were  afterwards  so  loudly  deplored 
by  Christian  critics.  See  J.  M.  Robertson's  Short  History  of  Christidniti/ 
(1902),  p.  130. 

1  See,  to  the  contrary,  Joel,  work  quoted,  p.  15. 

2  See  also  Graetz,  Gesch.  der  Juden,  IV,  104. 

8  See  Antiqua  Mater,  p.   23.     Bruno  Bauer  also  says:  "The  picture 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES  41 

(b)  The  Criticisms  of  Hochart.1 — No  one  has  more 
decisively  attacked  the  belief  in  the  persecution  of  the 
Christians  than  Hochart,  and  it  is  therefore  advisable  to 
give  a  summary  here  of  the  critic's  arguments. 

In  the  first  place,  he  regards  it  as  wholly  improbable 
that  the  charge  against  Nero,  of  setting  fire  to  the  city 
himself,  was  made  at  all.  The  whole  conduct  of  the 
emperor  during  and  after  the  fire,  as  it  is  described  by 
Tacitus,  could  not  possibly  have  led  to  such  a  feeling 
among  the  people.  Even  Suetonius,  who  is  so  bent  on 
throwing  the  blame  of  the  fire  on  Nero,  knows  nothing 
of  such  a  rumour,  and,  according  to  the  account  of 
Tacitus,  the  emperor  suffered  no  loss  of  popularity  with 
the  people.  Then  the  aristocrats,  who  were  in  con- 
spiracy against  him,  did  not  venture  to  take  any  step 
against  him,  and  the  people  were  very  far  from  disposed 
to  take  the  part  of  the  conspirators  when  they  were 
tried.  Hence  the  persecution  of  the  Christians  has  no 
adequate  motive,  and  cannot  in  any  case  have  been  due 
to  the  cause  alleged  in  Tacitus.  In  this  Schiller  agrees 
with  Hochart.  In  agreement  also  with  Adolph  Stahr, 

given  in  Tacitus  can  only  be  understood  in  connection  with  the  influences 
of  the  age  in  which  he  wrote  his  Annals — the  age  of  Trajan,  the  second 
decade  of  the  second  century.  At  that  time  there  were  Christian 
elements  in  Rome,  and  he  might  have  heard  of  Christ  and  his  fate  under 
Pontius  Pilate,  and  supposed  that  the  unhealthy  state  of  things  that  was 
suppressed  by  the  death  of  Christ  may  have  broken  out  again  and  reached 
Rome,  the  place  to  which  everything  unclean  went.  The  same  influences 
of  the  time  and  of  Tacitus  are  seen  in  Suetonius's  biography  of  Nero 
(cap.  16  and  17),  which  mentions  the  punishment  of  the  Christians,  as 
people  having  a  new  and  shameful  superstition,  among  the  police  measures 
of  the  emperor"  (p.  155).  Lublinski  has  recently  put  very  clearly  the  con- 
tradiction involved  in  the  passage  of  Tacitus  (Das  ircrdcndc  Dogma  vom 
Lcben  Jesu,  1911,  p.  59):  "The  Christians  suffered  a  punishment  that 
was  clearly  regarded  as  a  penalty  of  their  crimes  ;  the  murderous  incen- 
diaries were  burned.  Nevertheless,  they  are  said  to  have  been  condemned, 
not  on  account  of  the  fire,  but  for  hating  the  human  race.  Strange  to 
say,  they  could  not  be  convicted  of  complicity  in  the  fire,  though  they 
had  made  a  '  confession.'  In  other  words,  people  acknowledged  them- 
selves guilty  of  arson,  yet  could  not  be  convicted  of  it ;  but  they  were 
nonetheless  executed  for  arson  in  order  to  punish  severely  their  hatred  of 
the  human  race.  Could  anything  be  more  confused  and  contradictory?" 

1  Etudes  au  sujet  de  la  persecution  des  chrttiens  sous  Neron,  1885  ;  De 
V  Authenticity  des  Annales  et  des  Histoires  de  Tacite,  1890  ;  Nouvelles  Con- 
siderations au  sujet  des  Annales  et  des  Histoires  de  Tacite,  1897. 


42  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

he  regards  the  rumour  that  Nero  was  the  author  of  the 
fire  as  utterly  incredible.  If  any  rumour  of  the  kind 
arose,  it  would,  he  believes,  have  been  confined  to  the 
members  of  the  aristocratic  party,  with  whom  Tacitus 
was  in  sympathy,  and  would  not  be  found  among  the 
people,  who  considered  him  innocent.1  There  was,  there- 
fore, according  to  Schiller,  with  whom  even  Arnold  agrees 
on  this  point,2  no  reason  why  Nero  should  accuse  the 
Christians  of  causing  the  fire.8  In  any  case  there  can  be 
no  question  of  a  Neronian  "  persecution  of  the  Christians," 
even  if  Tacitus  has  discovered  a  statement  handed  down 
that,  on  the  occasion  of  the  fire,  a  number  of  Jewish 
sectaries,  possibly  including  some  Christians,  were  put  to 
death  on  the  charge  of  causing  it.4 

The  expression  "  Christians,"  which  Tacitus  applies  to 
the  followers  of  Jesus,  was  by  no  means  common  in  the 
time  of  Nero.  Not  a  single  Greek  or  Roman  writer  of 
the  first  century  mentions  the  name :  neither  Juvenal 
nor  Persius,  Lucian  or  Martial,  the  older  Pliny  or  Seneca. 
Even  Dio  Cassius  never  uses  it,  and  his  abbreviator,  the 
monk  Xiphilinus,  sees  no  reason  to  break  his  silence,  but 
speaks  of  the  Christians  who  were  persecuted  under 
Domitian  as  followers  of  the  Jewish  religion.5  The 
Christians,  who  called  themselves  Jessaeans,  or  Nazoraeans, 
the  Elect,  the  Saints,  the  Faithful,  etc.,  were  universally 
regarded  as  Jews.  They  observed  the  Mosaic  law,  and 
the  people  could  not  distinguish  them  from  the  other 

1  Work  quoted,  p.  425.     In  the  same  way  might    be   explained   the 
testimony  of  the  Prwtorian  leader,  Flavins  Subrius,  who,  in  order  to  cut 
Nero  as  deeply  as  possible,  called  him,  according  to   Tacitus  (Annals, 
xv,  G7),  the  murderer  of  his  mother  and  wife,  a  charioteer,  a  comedian, 
and  an  incendiary.     Bruno  Bauer  rightly  observes  on  this:   "Is  it  not 
possible  that  Tacitus,  or,  rather,  his  interpolator,  merely  put  these  words 
into  the  mouth  of  the  brave  officer  ?     Dio  Cassius,  who,  like  Tacitus  and 
Suetonius,  represents  the  prince  as  the  deliberate  author  of  the  fire,  has 
preserved  the  answer  of  Flavius  Subrius  in  what  is  probably  an  older  and 
more  reliable  form  (Ixii,  24):  'I  will  not  serve  a  charioteer  and  zither- 
player  '  "  (work  quoted,  p.  153). 

2  Work  quoted,  p.  41.  8  Oesch.  der  rljin.  Kaiserzeit,  p.  359. 
4  Arnold,  work  quoted,  p.  34  ;  Schiller,  work  quoted,  p.  449. 

6  See  Joel,  work  quoted,  p.  98. 


THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES  43 

Jews.  That  Tacitus  applied  the  name,  common  in  his 
time,  to  the  Jewish  sectaries  under  Nero,  as  Voltaire  and 
Gibbon  believe,  is  very  improbable.  The  Greek  word 
Christus  ("  the  anointed  ")  for  Messiah,  and  the  derivative 
word  Christian,  first  came  into  use  under  Trajan,  in  the 
time  of  Tacitus.  Even  then,  however,  the  word  Christus 
could  not  mean  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  All  the  Jews  with- 
out exception  looked  forward  to  a  Christus  or  Messiah, 
and  believed  that  his  coming  was  near  at  hand.  It  is, 
therefore,  not  clear  how  the  fact  of  being  a  "  Christian  " 
could,  in  the  time  of  Nero  or  of  Tacitus,  distinguish  the 
followers  of  Jesus  from  other  believers  in  a  Christus  or 
Messiah.1  This  could  only  be  at  a  time  when  the 
memory  was  lost  of  the  many  other  persons  who  had 
claimed  the  dignity  of  Messiah,  and  the  belief  in  the 
Messiah  had  become  a  belief  in  Jesus,  not  as  one,  but  the 
Messiah,  and  Christ  and  Jesus  had  become  equivalent 
terms.2  Not  one  of  the  evangelists  applies  the  name 
Christians  to  the  followers  of  Jesus.  It  is  never  used  in 
the  New  Testament  as  a  description  of  themselves  by  the 
believers  in  Jesus,  and  the  relevant  passage  in  Acts 


1  On  the  other  hand,  Arnold  has  attempted  to  ascribe  to  Tacitus  a  close 
acquaintance  with  the  Christians  from  the  fact  that  Sulpicius  Severus 
used  him  as  his  authority  in  his  description  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
and  that  his  statement  that  Titus  deliberately  furthered  the  destruction  of 
the  temple  in  order  to  destroy  at  once  the  Christian  and  the  Jewish  religion 
was  taken  from  the  last  conclusion  of  the  fifth  book  of  Tacitus' s  Histories 
(work  quoted,  p.  46).     No  less  an  authority  than  Jakob  Bernays  (Uber  die 
Clironik  dcs  Sulpicitu  Severus,  1861,  p.  57)  has  seen  in  this  reference  of 
Sulpicius  a  literal  agreement  with  the  statement  of  Tacitus  in  the  Annals 
(xv,  44),  that  Judsea  was  the  birthplace  of  the  Christian   religion,  and 
concluded  from  this  that  Sulpicius  had  Tacitus  before  his  eyes.     Bruno 
Bauer  has,  however,  observed  that  the  ecclesiastical  teachers  of  the  fourth 
century  were  so  firmly  convinced  of  the  hostility  of  all  the  emperors  after 
Claudius  to  the  Christians  that  the  pupil  of  the  Saint  of  Tours  could  easily 
penetrate  the  secret  design  of   Titus  without  any  inspiration  from   the 
Histories   of    Tacitus   (Christus   und  die   C&sarcn,  p.  216).     Hence   the 
inference  that  Sulpicius  possibly  took  the  statement  from  Tacitus  is  any- 
thing  but   convincing,  and   thus   the   idea   that   Tacitus  had  any  close 
acquaintance  with  the  Christians  falls  to  the  ground. 

2  This   general   acceptation   of  the   name  Christian  can,  according  to 
Harnack,  only  be  traced  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Hadrian  and  that  of 
Pius  (Die  Mission  und  Ausbreitung  des  Christenthums  in  den  ersten  drei 
Jahrhundcrtcn,  1902,  p.  296). 


44  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

(xi,  26),  according  to  which  the  name  was  first  used  at 
Antioch,  has  the  appearance  of  a  later  interpolation, 
belonging  to  a  time  when  the  term  had  become  a  name 
of  honour  in  the  eyes  of  some  and  a  name  of  reproach  in 
the  eyes  of  others.1  With  this  is  also  connected  the 
peculiar  way  in  which  Tacitus  speaks  of  the  execution  of 
Christ  under  the  procurator  Pontius  Pilate.  He  does  not 
know  the  name  Jesus — which,  we  may  note  incidentally, 
would  be  impossible  if  he  had  had  before  his  eyes  the 
acta  of  the  trial  or  the  protocols  of  the  Senate — takes 
Christ  to  be  a  personal  name,  and  speaks  of  Pilate  as  a 
person  known  to  the  reader,  not  as  an  historian  would 
who  seeks  to  inform  his  readers,  but  as  a  Christian  to 
Christians,  to  whom  the  circumstances  of  the  death  of 
Christ  were  familiar. 

The  Jews  at  Borne  had  gone  there  voluntarily  in  order 
to  make  their  fortune  in  the  metropolis  of  the  empire, 
and  on  the  whole  they  prospered.  They  may  have  been 
held  of  little  account,  or  even  despised,  but  no  more  so 
than  the  other  oriental  foreigners  who  endeavoured  to 
make  money  at  Borne  by  fortune-telling,  domestic  service, 
or  trade.  In  any  case  there  is  so  little  question  of  a 
general  "  hatred "  of  the  people  for  them  that  the 
Jewish  historians,  especially  Josephus,  do  not  make  much 
complaint  of  the  treatment  accorded  to  their  countrymen 
at  Borne.2  It  is  incredible  that  the  Jessseans  or  Nazoraeans 
amongst  them,  who  must  in  any  case  have  been  few  in 
number  at  the  time  of  the  fire,  were  the  object  of  an 
especial  hatred,  and  so  would  be  likely  to  bear  the  blame 
of  the  fire  in  the  eyes  of  the  people. 

Death  by  fire  was  not  a  form  of  punishment  inflicted 
at  Borne  in  the  time  of  Nero.  It  is  opposed  to  the 
moderate  principles  on  which  the  accused  were  then 
dealt  with  by  the  State.  The  use  of  the  Christians  as 
"  living  torches,"  as  Tacitus  describes,  and  all  the  other 

1  See  also  1  Peter  iv,  16,  and  Acts  xxvi,  28. 

2  See  also  Joel,  work  quoted,  p.  106. 


THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES  45 

atrocities  that  were  committed  against  them,  have  little 
title  to  credence,  and  suggest  an  imagination  exalted  by 
reading  stories  of  the  later  Christian  martyrs.  The  often 
quoted  statements  of  Juvenal  and  Seneca  have  no  bearing 
on  this  ;  they  are  not  connected  with  the  Christians,  and 
need  not  in  the  least  be  regarded  as  references  to  the 
members  of  the  new  sect  sacrificed  by  Nero. 

The  victims  cannot  possibly  have  been  given  to  the 
flames  in  the  gardens  of  Nero,  as  Tacitus  says.  Accord- 
ing to  his  own  account,  these  gardens  were  the  refuge  of 
those  whose  homes  had  been  burned,  and  were  full  of 
tents  and  wooden  sheds.  It  is  hardly  probable  that  Nero 
would  incur  the  risk  of  a  second  fire  by  his  "  living 
torches,"  and  still  less  probable  that  he  mingled  with  the 
crowd  and  feasted  his  eyes  on  the  ghastly  spectacle. 
Tacitus  tells  us  in  his  life  of  Agricola  that  Nero  had 
crimes  committed,  but  kept  his  own  eyes  off  them.  The 
gardens  of  Nero  (on  the  present  Vatican)  seem  to  have 
been  chosen  as  the  theatre  of  the  deed  merely  to 
strengthen  the  legend  that  the  holy  of  holies  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  Church  of  St.  Peter,  was  built  on  the  spot  on 
which  the  first  Christian  martyrs  had  shed  their  blood.1 

Finally,  there  is  the  complete  silence  of  profane  writers 
and  the  vagueness  of  the  Christian  writers  on  the  matter ; 
the  latter  only  gradually  come  to  make  a  definite  state- 
ment of  a  general  persecution  of  the  Christians  under 
Nero,  whereas  at  first  they  make  Nero  put  to  death  only 
Peter  and  Paul.  The  first  unequivocal  mention  of  the 
Neronian  persecution  in  connection  with  the  burning  of 
Rome  is  found  in  the  forged  correspondence  of  Seneca 
and  the  apostle  Paul,  which  belongs  to  the  fourth 
century.  A  fuller  account  is  then  given  in  the  Chronicle 
of  Sulpicius  Severus  (died  403  A.D.),  but  it  is  mixed  with 
the  most  transparent  Christian  legends,  such  as  the  story 
of  the  death  of  Simon  Magus,  the  bishopric  and  sojourn 

1  Cf.  Hochart,  Nouvellcs  Considerations,  160  ff. 


46  THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES 

of  Peter  at  Home,  etc.  The  expressions  of  Sulpicius 
agree,  in  part,  almost  word  for  word  with  those  of 
Tacitus.  It  is,  however,  very  doubtful,  in  view  of  the 
silence  of  the  other  Christian  authors  who  used  Tacitus, 
if  the  manuscript  of  Tacitus  which  Sulpicius  used 
contained  the  passage  in  question.  We  are  therefore 
strongly  disposed  to  suspect  that  the  passage  (Annals, 
xv,  44)  was  transferred  from  Sulpicius  to  the  text  of 
Tacitus  by  the  hand  of  a  monastic  copyist  or  forger,  for 
the  greater  glory  of  God  and  in  order  to  strengthen  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  tradition  by  a  pagan  witness.1 

But  how  could  the  legend  arise  that  Nero  was  the  first 
to  persecute  the  Christians?  It  arose,  says  Hochart, 
under  a  threefold  influence.  The  first  is  the  apocalyptic 
idea,  which  saw  in  Nero  the  Antichrist,  the  embodiment 
of  all  evil,  the  terrible  adversary  of  the  Messiah  and  his 
followers.  As  such  he  was  bound,  by  a  kind  of  natural 
enmity,  to  have  been  the  first  to  persecute  the  Christians ; 
as  Sulpicius  puts  it,  "  because  vice  is  always  the  enemy 
of  the  good."2  The  second  is  the  political  interest  of  the 
Christians  in  representing  themselves  as  Nero's  victims, 
in  order  to  win  the  favour  and  protection  of  his  successors 
on  that  account.  The  third  is  the  special  interest  of  the 
Roman  Church  in  the  death  of  the  two  chief  apostles, 
Peter  and  Paul,  at  Rome.  Then  the  author  of  the  letters 
of  Seneca  to  Paul  enlarged  the  legend  in  its  primitive 
form,  brought  it  into  agreement  with  the  ideas  of  this 
time,  and  gave  it  a  political  turn.  The  vague  charges  of 
incendiarism  assumed  a  more  definite  form,  and  were 
associated  with  the  character  of  Antichrist,  which  the 

1  In  his  De  V  Autlwnticitt  des  Histoires  ctdcs  A-iinnles  de  Tacite  Hochart 
points  out  that,  whereas  the  Life  of  St.  Martin  and  the  Dialogues  of 
Sulpicius  were  found  in  many  libraries,  there  was  only  one  manuscript  of 
his  Chronicle,  probably  of  the  eleventh  century,  which  is  now  in  the 
Vatican.  Hence  the  work  was  almost  unknown  throughout  the  Middle 
A^es,  and  no  one  was  aware  of  the  reference  in  it  to  a  Roman  persecution 
of  the  Christians.  It  is  noteworthy  that  Poggio  Bracciolini  seems  by  some 
lucky  chance  to  have  discovered  and  read  this  manuscript  (work  quoted, 
p.  225).  Cf.  Nouvelles  Considerations,  pp.  142-72. 

-  Compare  Eusebius,  Keel.  Hist.,  ii,  28. 


THE  BOMAN  WITNESSES  47 

Church  was  accustomed  to  ascribe  to  Nero  on  account 
of  his  supposed  diabolical  cruelty.  He  was  accused  of 
inflicting  horrible  martyrdoms  on  the  Christians,  and 
thus  the  legend  in  its  latest  form  reached  the  Chronicle 
of  Sulpicius.  Finally  a  clever  forger  (Poggio  ?)  smuggled 
the  dramatic  account  of  this  persecution  into  the  Annals 
of  Tacitus,  and  thus  secured  the  acceptance  as  historical 
fact  of  a  purely  imaginary  story. 

We  need  not  recognise  all  Hochart's  arguments  as 
equally  sound,  yet  we  must  admit  that  in  their  entirety 
and  agreement  they  are  worthy  of  consideration,  and  are 
well  calculated  to  disturb  the  ingenuous  belief  in  the 
authenticity  of  the  passage  of  Tacitus.  It  seems  as  if 
official  "science"  is  here  again,  as  in  so  many  other 
cases,  under  the  dominion  of  a  long-continued  suggestion, 
in  taking  the  narrative  of  Tacitus  to  be  genuine  without 
further  examination.  We  must  not  forget  what  a  close 
connection  there  is  between  this  narrative  and  the  whole 
of  Christian  history,  and  what  interest  religious  education 
and  the  Church  have  in  preventing  any  doubt  from  being 
cast  on  it.  Otherwise  how  can  we  explain  that  no  one 
took  any  notice  during  the  whole  of  the  Middle  Ages  of 
a  passage  of  such  great  importance  for  the  history  and 
prestige  of  the  Church  ?  No  one,  in  fact,  seems  to  have 
had  the  least  suspicion  of  its  existence  until  it  was  found 
in  the  sole  copy  at  that  time  of  Tacitus,  the  Codex 
Mediceus  II,  printed  by  Johann  and  his  brother  Wendelin 
von  Speyer  about  1470  at  Venice,  of  which  all  the  other 
manuscripts  are  copies.1  Our  historians  as  a  rule  are 
content  to  reproduce  the  narrative  of  Tacitus  in  some- 
what modified  terms,  without  making  any  close  scrutiny 
of  Annals,  xv,  44 ;  thus  does  Domaszewski,  for  instance, 
in  his  History  of  the  Roman  Empire  (1909),  to  say 
nothing  of  the  numerous  popular  manuals  of  history. 
But  our  whole  science  of  history  is  still,  as  regards  the 
origin  of  Christianity,  under  the  mischievous  influence  of 

1  Hochart,  DC  V Autlicnticitc ,  etc.,  p.  50. 


48  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

theology,  and  is  content  to  reproduce  its  statements 
without  inquiry.  In  regard  to  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  the  Christian  religion  and  the  historicity  of 
Jesus  it  has  almost  entirely  abdicated  its  function,  and  is 
actually  pleased  that  it  need  not  deal  with  this  delicate 
theme,  as  Seeck  candidly  admits  when  he  says  in  his 
Geschichte  des  Untergangs  der  antiken  Welt  (iii,  1900)  : 
"  We  have  no  intention  of  depicting  the  human  personality 
of  Jesus  and  telling  the  story  of  his  life,  since  these 
problems  are,  in  the  present  state  of  tradition,  perhaps 
insoluble,  but  at  all  events  not  yet  solved.  Every 
question  relating  to  the  origin  of  Christianity  is  so 
difficult  that  we  are  glad  to  avoid  it  altogether."1  It  is 
true  that  Seeck  regards  the  hesitation  in  regard  to  the 
genuineness  of  the  writings  admitted  in  theology  as  "  in 
most  cases  without  foundation."  He  accepts  tradition  in 
regard  to  the  Tacitus  narrative,  and  believes  in  the 
Neronian  persecution  of  the  Christians.  What  is  the 
use  of  this,  however,  when  he  has  made  no  close  inquiry 
into  these  things,  and  therefore  gives  his  verdict  solely  in 
accordance  with  a  general  belief  which  is  possibly  a  mere 
prejudice  ?  Assuredly  we  do  not  envy  the  "  historical 
sense"  and  the  good  taste  of  men  who  would  persuade 
themselves  and  others  that  it  would  be  just  as  easy  to 
deny  the  historicity  of  Socrates,  Alexander,  Luther, 
Goethe,  Bismarck,  etc.,  as  that  of  Jesus,  although  this 
is  shown  in  a  very  different  way  than  the  historical 
existence  of  the  "  god-man  "  of  the  gospels.2 

1  Work  quoted,  p.  173. 

a  Compare  Steudel,  Wir  Gelehrten  vom  Facli,  etc.  (p.  6),  and  Lublinski, 
work  quoted,  p.  47.  In  the  controversy  about  the  Christ-myth  an  attempt 
has  been  made  even  lately  to  revive  the  much-ridiculed  argument  that 
there  never  was  such  a  person  as  Napoleon,  by  which  Perez  fancied  he 
could  refute  Dupuis,  and  the  argument  of  Von  der  Ha-m  against  Strauss, 
"  that  there  \v;is  never  any  such  persofi  as  Luther,"  in  the  year  1837,  in 
order  to  show  how  one  may  deny  'the  existence  of  any  great  man  on 
"Drews' method."  That  such  arguments  rely  upon  the  thoughtlessness 
of  the  majority  of  people  to  have  any  effect  throws  equal  light  upon  the 
general  intelligence,  and  on  the  frame  of  mind  of  men  who  can  make  use 
of  such  arguments. 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES  49 

(c)  The  Possibility  of  Various  Interpretations  of 
"Annals,"  xv,  44. — So  much  as  to  the  possible  spurious- 
ness  of  Annals,  xv,  44.  We  have  now  to  examine  the 
evidential  value  of  the  passage,  supposing  it  to  be 
genuine,  and  apart  from  all  that  we  have  said  of  its  his- 
torical value. 

In  opposition  to  Hermann  Schiller,  Neumann,  and 
other  historians,  Harnack  regards  it  as  "  certain "  that 
the  persecution  mentioned  by  Tacitus  was  really  a  perse- 
cution of  the  Christians.  He  believes,  nevertheless,  that 
the  passage  is  "  not  altogether  intelligible  "  in  the  sense 
that  it  first  ascribes  the  invention  of  the  name  "  Chris- 
tiani  "  to  the  "  people,"  and  then  goes  on  to  say  that "  the 
author  of  the  name  "  was  Christ.  "  If  that  is  so,  the 
people  acted  quite  reasonably  in  giving  the  name  of 
Christians  to  the  followers  of  Christ.  Why,  then,  does 
Tacitus  call  the  title  '  Christians  '  a  *  name  imposed  by 
the  people'?"  The  circumstance  is  really  very  curious. 
"In  order  to  put  an  end  to  the  trouble,  Nero  laid  the 
blame  on  those  whom,  hateful  for  their  crimes,  the  people 
called  Christians."  However,  Andresen  has  made  a  fresh 
study  of  the  Tacitus  manuscript,  and  shown  that  the  word 
was  at  first  "  Chrestianos,"  and  was  later  altered  to 
"  Christianos ";  whereas  it  is  written  "  Christus,"  not 
"  Chrestus."  "  Now  it  is  quite  clear,"  says  Harnack, 
"  Tacitus  says  that  the  people  call  the  sect  Chrestiani ; 
he,  however — relying  on  more  accurate  knowledge,  as 
Plinius  has  already  written  '  Christiani ' — quietly  corrects 
the  name,  and  rightly  speaks  of  the  author  of  the  name 
as  Christ."1 

The  expression  "  Chrestiani "  is  usually  regarded  as  a 
popular  version  of  "  Christiani  "  (compare  Vergil  and 
Virgil),  just  as,  on  this  account,  Suetonius  is  supposed  to 
have  written  Chrestus  instead  of  Christus.  But,  as  we 
observed  before,  Chrestus  was  not  only  a  familiar  personal 

1  Mission  und  Ausbreitung,  p.  29G. 


50  THE  KOMAN  WITNESSES 

name ;  it  was  also  a  name  of  the  Egyptian  Serapis  or 
Osiris,  which  had  a  large  following  at  Rome,  especially 
among  the  common  people.  Hence  "  Chrestiani  "  may 
be  either  the  followers  of  a  man  named  Chrestus,  or  of 
Serapis.  The  word  "Chrestus"  means  "the  good." 
Thus  the  Chrestiani  were  likely  to  attract  the  name  of 
"the  good,"  and  it  is  presumed  that  the  people  gave  this 
name  to  those  whom  they  detested  on  account  of  their 
evil  deeds.  Possibly  this  name  was  given  to  them  pre- 
cisely because  they  were  hated  for  their  crimes.  The 
Latin  sentence,  "  quos  per  flagitia  invisos  vulgus  Chris- 
tianos  appellabat,"  admits  this  interpretation,  and  it  is 
often  found.  How  came  the  people  to  give  the  name  of 
"  the  good  "  to  men  who  were  in  their  eyes  notoriously 
bad?  Clearly,  the  expression  must,  when  we  examine 
their  way  of  thinking,  be  regarded  as  ironical ;  the  Roman 
people  called  the  followers  of  Serapis-Chrestus  "good" 
because  they  were  precisely  the  contrary.  We  might 
therefore  regard  the  name  "  Chrestiani  "  as  equivalent  to 
"  the  clean  brethren,"  just  as  it  is  customary  to  call  the 
scum  of  Paris  the  "Apaches."1 

We  know  from  history  what  an  evil  repute  the  Egyptian 
people,  which  consisted  mainly  of  Alexandrian  elements, 
had  at  Rome.  While  other  foreign  cults  that  had  been 
introduced  into  Rome  enjoyed  the  utmost  toleration,  the 
cult  of  Serapis  and  Isis  was  exposed  repeatedly  to  perse- 
cution. This  was  due,  as  we  learn  from  Cumont,  not 
merely  to  political  considerations,  the  hostility  of  Rome 
to  Alexandria,  but  also  to  moral  and  police  reasons.  The 
lax  morality  associated  with  the  worship  of  the  Egyptian 
gods  and  the  fanaticism  of  their  worshippers  repelled  the 
Romans,  and  excited  the  suspicion  that  their  cultus  might 
be  directed  against  the  State.  "  Their  secret  associations, 
which  were  chiefly  recruited  from  the  poorer  people, 
might  easily,  under  the  cover  of  religion,  become  clubs 

1  Compare  Louis  Ganeval,  Jtsus  devant  I'histoire  n'a  jamais  vicut 
1875. 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES  51 

of  agitators  and  the  resort  of  spies.  These  grounds  for 
suspicion  and  hatred  [!]  contributed  more,  no  doubt,  to 
the  rise  of  the  persecution  than  purely  theological  con- 
siderations. We  see  how  it  subsides  and  flames  out  again 
according  to  the  changes  in  the  condition  of  general 
politics."1 

In  the  year  48  B.C.  the  chapels  devoted  to  Isis  were 
destroyed  by  order  of  the  Senate,  and  their  images  of  the 
gods  broken.  In  28  A.D.  the  Alexandrian  divinities  were 
excluded  from  the  limits  of  the  Pomoerium — a  proscription 
which  Agrippa  extended  seven  years  afterwards  to  a  sphere 
a  thousand  paces  from  the  city.  In  fact,  in  the  year  49 
the  feeling  against  the  Egyptians  ran  so  high,  on  account 
of  a  scandal  in  which  Egyptian  priests  were  involved, 
that  the  most  drastic  proceedings  were  taken  against  the 
followers  of  Serapis.  On  this  occasion  the  maltreatment 
fell  upon  the  Jews  also,  because  some  of  their  compatriots 
had  behaved  in  a  similar  manner ;  this  was  not  due  to 
any  general  hatred  of  the  Jews,  but  to  the  fact  that  the 
Koman  Jews,  who  mostly  came  from  Egypt  and  Alex- 
andria, were  confused  with  the  Alexandrians,  and  even 
with  that  Alexandrian  rabble  the  "  Chrestiani."  We 
read  in  Tacitus2  that  at  that  time  the  proscription  of  the 
Egyptian  and  Jewish  religious  practices  was  discussed, 
and  the  Senate  decided  to  send  four  thousand  men  infected 
with  their  superstitions,  of  the  class  of  freedmen,  to  the 
island  of  Sardinia,  to  fight  the  bandits,  in  the  hope  that 
the  unhealthy  climate  of  the  island  would  make  an  end 
of  them.  Josephus  also  says  this  in  his  Antiquities?  A 
few  years  later,  under  Claudius,  "  the  Senate  decreed  the 
expulsion  of  the  mathematicians  from  Italy,  though  the 
decree  was  not  put  in  force."4  The  mathematicians — 
that  is  to  say,  astrologists — are  the  Egyptians  and  Egyptian 
Jews,  the  followers  of  Chrestus,  as  we  read  in  Fl.  Vopiscus 

1  Die  orientalischen    Religionen  im  rOmiscJien  Hcidentnm,  by  Gehrich 
(1910),  p.  98. 

2  Annals,  ii,  85.  s  xviii,  3,  5.  4  Annals,  xii,  52. 


52  THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES 

in  the  letter  of  the  Emperor  Hadrian  to  his  brother-in- 
law  Servius :  "  Those  who  worship  Serapis  are  the 
Chrestians,  and  those  who  call  themselves  priests  of 
Chrestus  are  devoted  to  Serapis.  There  is  not  a  high- 
priest  of  the  Jews,  a  Samaritan,  or  a  priest  of  Chrestus 
who  is  not  a  mathematician,  soothsayer,  or  quack.  Even 
the  patriarch,  when  he  goes  to  Egypt,  is  compelled  by 
some  to  worship  Serapis,  by  others  to  worship  Chrestus. 
They  are  a  turbulent,  inflated,  lawless  body  of  men. 
They  have  only  one  God,  who  is  worshipped  by  the 
Chrestians,  the  Jews,  and  all  the  peoples  of  Egypt." 

It  is  true  that  this  letter  is  often  regarded  as  spurious, 
a  fourth-century  forgery,  on  account  of  its  absurd  and 
confused  expressions  on  Christianity  and  the  Christians. 
In  any  case,  it  shows  the  close  connection  between  the 
Alexandrian  Jews  and  the  Egyptians,  since  both  are 
described  as  mathematicians  and  Chrestians.  And  is  it 
not  possible  that  the  reference  to  Chrestus  and  the 
Chrestians  has  been  too  hastily  applied  to  Christus  and 
the  Christians?  And  may  not  the  absurdity  be  due 
simply  to  the  fact  that  the  writer  of  the  letter  could  see 
no  clear  distinction  between  the  two  religions  and  their 
deities?  The  passage  in  Tacitus  may,  in  that  case,  be 
due  to  a  similar  misunderstanding.  The  "  Chrestiani," 
who  were  detested  by  the  people  for  their  crimes,  and  to 
whom  the  historian  ascribes  all  the  abominations  that 
have  invaded  the  metropolis,  are  not  Christians  at  all, 
but  followers  of  Chrestus,  the  scum  of  Egypt,  the 
"  apaches  "  of  Home,  a  "  multitude  ingens,"  a  real  "  object 
of  hatred  to  the  human  race,"  people  on  whom  Nero  could 
very  easily  cast  the  suspicion  of  having  set  fire  to  Home, 
and  whose  admission  that  they  had  done  so  is  not  in  the 
least  unintelligible.  Hence  the  *'  people  "  rightly  called 
them  "  Chrestians,"  which  was,  as  we  saw,  an  ambiguous 
name,  and  a  not  uncommon  epithet  in  Borne  at  the  time. 
Tacitus,  about  the  year  117,  confuses  them  with  the 
Christians  of  his  time,  just  as  the  Emperor  Hadrian  does 


THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES  53 

in  his  letter  to  Servius  fourteen  years  afterwards.  Having 
done  so,  he  felt  compelled  to  add  the  explanatory  words, 
"  autor  nominis  ejus  Christus,"  etc.,  and  describe  them 
as  coming  from  Judaea,  confusing  the  Alexandrian  Jews, 
who  were  identified  with  them,  with  the  Jews  of  Pales- 
tine. In  this  way  the  expression  "  appellabat "  (instead 
of  "appellat"),  which  seems  to  Harnack  "  remarkable," 
becomes  intelligible.  Possibly  there  is  question  of  some 
popular  phrase  used  in  Nero's  time  which  Tacitus  himself 
did  not  understand  ;  possibly,  however,  the  sentence  in 
which  Christus  is  said  to  have  been  the  author  of  the 
name  of  Christians  and  the  whole  reference  to  Judaea  do 
not  come  from  the  pen  of  Tacitus  at  all,  but  are  due  to  a 
later  Christian,  who  identified  the  Chrestians  of  Tacitus 
with  the  Christians ;  and  thus  the  whole  Neronian  perse- 
cution and  the  supposed  confirmation  of  the  historicity  of 
Christ  by  the  Eoman  historian  are  based  upon  a  monstrous 
misunderstanding.  If  that  is  so,  a  new  light  is  thrown 
also  on  the  "  Chresto  impulsore  "  of  Sulpicius.  Chrestus 
was  not  only  the  name  of  the  god,  but,  as  frequently 
happened  in  ancient  religions,  also  of  his  chief  priest. 
May  it  not  be  that  the  tumults  of  the  "  Jews "  under 
Claudius  really  refer  to  rebellious  and  criminal  elements 
of  the  Egyptian  rabble  in  the  metropolis,  under  the 
influence  of  their  chief  priest,  ending  in  the  expulsion  of 
the  Jews  from  Rome?  This,  of  course,  is  not  the  only 
plausible  explanation  of  the  passage.  We  need  only  say 
that  it  is  a  possible  interpretation  of  what  happened.  In 
that  case,  the  passage  of  Tacitus  might  remain  substan- 
tially unquestioned,  without  proving  what  it  is  generally 
supposed  to  prove — namely,  the  fact  of  a  Neronian  perse- 
cution and  the  existence  of  an  historical  Jesus.  In  this 
way,  at  all  events,  we  find  the  simplest  solution  of  all  the 
difficulties  connected  with  the  passage  in  Tacitus. 

Those  who  do  not  find  this  interpretation  of  Annals, 
xv,  44,  plausible  have  still  to  solve  the  problem  whether 
the  Chrestians  or  Christians  of  the  Eoman  historian  were 


54  THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 

really  Christians  in  our  meaning  of  the  word  or  were 
distinct  from  them.  Edwin  Johnson  regards  the  Chres- 
tians  as  followers  of  the  "  good  god"  (Chrestus),  as  the 
Gnostics  called  their  god  in  opposition  to  Jahveh,  whom 
they  looked  upon  as  the  perversely  conceived  creator  of 
the  Jews.  He  thus  traces  the  name  to  a  sect,  the  founder 
of  which  he  considers  to  have  been  Simon  the  Magician, 
flourishing  in  Eome  in  the  time  of  Claudius,  whose 
members,  as  representatives  of  a  spiritualised  Judaism, 
were  very  obnoxious  to  the  traditional  Jew.1  He  supposes 
that  Tacitus  transferred  to  the  time  of  Nero  the  hatred  of 
the  Christians  which  animated  the  Jews  of  his  own  time, 
and  thus  the  Chrestians  (Gnostics)  were  confused  with 
the  real  Christians.  Possibly,  however,  the  name  is  only 
another  expression  for  Messianists,  and  the  Chrestians  of 
Tacitus  are  Jews  exalted  by  eschatological  ideas,  living  in 
expectation  of  a  speedy  end  of  the  world  by  fire,  and  so 
contracting  the  suspicion  of  having  set  fire  to  the  city. 
They  may  have  formed  a  "  multitude  ingens "  and 
incurred  "  the  hatred  of  the  human  race  "  by  being  led 
in  their  fanaticism  to  express  their  satisfaction  at  the 
burning  of  the  metropolis ;  possibly  they  even  took  part 
in  it.  However  that  may  be,  there  is  not  the  least  proof 
in  any  case  of  a  Neronian  persecution  of  the  Christians. 
Even  in  this  case,  Tacitus's  reference  to  Christ  as  the 
founder  of  the  sect  rests  on  a  misunderstanding — namely, 
a  confusion  of  the  most  confident  of  the  Jewish  Messianists 
with  the  followers  of  the  Christus  who,  as  Tacitus  had 
heard,  had  been  crucified  under  Pontius  Pilatus.2 

In  regard  to  the  significance  of  Pilate  in  Tacitus,  a 
remarkable  hypothesis  has  recently  been  put  forward  by 
Andrzej  Niemojewski  in  his  work,  Gott  Jesus  im  Liclite 
fremder  und  eigener  Forschungen  samt  Darstellung  der 
evangelischenAstralstoffe,  Astralszenen,und  Astralsysteme 

1  Antiqua  Mater,  pp.  279-292. 

2  See  Joel,  work  quoted,  p.  144  ;  also  Whittaker,  TJie  Origins  of  Chris- 
tianity (2nd  ed.,  1909),  p. -21. 


THE  KOMAN  WITNESSES  55 

(1910).  According  to  this,  the  Pilate  of  the  Christian 
legend  was  not  originally  an  historical  person;  the 
whole  story  of  Christ  is  to  be  taken  in  an  astral  sense, 
and  Pilate  represents  the  constellation  of  Orion,  the 
javelin-man  (pilatus,  in  Latin),  with  the  arrow  or  lance- 
constellation  (Sagitta),  which  is  supposed  to  be  very  long 
in  the  Greek  myth,  and  appears  in  the  Christian  legend 
under  the  name  of  Longinus,  and  is  in  the  Gospel  of 
John  the  soldier  who  pierces  the  side  of  Jesus  with  a 
spear  (longche,  in  Greek).  In  the  astral  myth,  the  Christ 
hanging  on  the  cross,  or  world-tree  (i.e.,  the  Milky  Way), 
is  killed  by  the  lance  of  "  Pilatus."  Hence,  according  to 
Niemojewski,  the  Christian  populace  told  the  legend  of  a 
javelin-man,  a  certain  Pilatus,  who  was  supposed  to  have 
been  responsible  for  the  death  of  the  Saviour.  This 
wholly  sufficed  for  Tacitus  to  recognise  in  him  the 
procurator  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  who  must  have 
been  known  to  the  Koman  historian  from  the  books  of 
Josephus  "  On  the  Jewish  War,"  which  were  destined 
for  the  imperial  house.1  In  point  of  fact,  the  procurator 
Pontius  Pilate  plays  a  part  in  the  gospels  so  singularly 
opposed  to  the  account  of  the  historical  Pilate,  as  Josephus 
describes  him,  that  we  can  very  well  suspect  a  later 
introduction  of  an  historical  personage  into  the  quasi- 
historical  narrative. 

When  we  take  account  of  these  many  possible  inter- 
pretations of  Annals,  xv,  44,  all  of  which  are  as  probable 
as,  if  not  more  probable  than,  the  customary  Christian 
explanation,  the  narrative  of  Tacitus  cannot  be  quoted  as 
a  witness  to  the  historicity  of  Jesus.  We  may  say,  indeed, 
that  history  has  hitherto  treated  the  passage,  in  view  of 
its  importance,  with  an  absolutely  irresponsible  super- 
ficialness  and  levity.  "  The  non-Christian  witnesses," 
says  von  Soden,  "  can  only  be  quoted  in  favour  of,  not 
against,  the  historicity  of  Jesus"  (p.  14).  The  truth  is 

1  Work  quoted,  p.  129. 


56  THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES 

that  they  prove  nothing  either  for  or  against ;  they  prove 
nothing  at  all.1  J.  Weiss  is  perfectly  correct  when  he 
says,  as  we  saw  previously :  "  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  really  convincing  witness  in  profane  literature."  It  is 
true  that  he  is  able  to  console  himself  for  this.  "  What," 
he  asks,  "  could  Josephus  or  Tacitus  do  for  us  ?  They 
could  at  the  most  merely  show  that  at  the  end  of  the  first 
century  not  only  the  Christians,  but  their  tradition  and 
Christ-mythos,  were  known  at  Rome.  When  it  originated, 
however,  and  how  far  it  was  based  on  truth,  could  not  be 
discovered  from  Tacitus  or  Josephus"  (p.  91).  The 
orthodox  pastor  Kurt  Delbriick  adds :  "  What  does  it 
matter  whether  or  no  Tacitus  wrote  it  ?  He  could  only 
have  received  the  information,  a  hundred  years  after  the 
time,  from  people  who  had  told  it  to  others.  It  matters 
nothing  to  us,  therefore,  whether  the  passage  is  genuine 
or  not.  The  historical  personality  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
proved  only  by  the  fact  [?]  that  the  earliest  Christian 
community  recognised  its  Saviour  in  him  whom  it  had 
once  seen  alive.  We  have  no  further  historical  documents." 

3.—"  LUCUS  A  NON  LUCENDO." 

It  seems  superfluous  now  to  enlarge  on  the  objection 
that,  if  no  pagan  writer  unequivocally  proves  the  existence 

1  Characteristic  of  the  conduct  of  our  opponents  is  the  way  in  which 
Otto  Schmiedel  treats  the  Roman  witnesses.  "  Tacitus,"  says  this  repre- 
sentative of  historical  theology,  "  mentions  in  his  Annals  about  the 
year  116  the  execution  of  Jesus  [?]  under  Pontius  Pilate,  and  the  spread 
of  his  [?]  superstitious  sect  in  Judfea  and  even  Rome.  A  passage  in 
Suetonius  written  about  the  year  120  ('  Nero,'  ch.  xvi)  is  to  the  same 
effect  [!?];  and  the  younger  Pliny,  Governor  of  Bithynia,  in  112  or  113, 
describes  in  a  letter  (Ep.  x,  96)  to  the  Emperor  Trajan  the  wide  spread 
of  the  Christians  in  his  province  and  the  hymns  they  sing  to  their  Christ 
as  a  god  [!].  The  violent  opponent  of  Christianity,  the  philosopher 
Celsus,  is  already  [.sic]  acquainted  with  the  whole  literature  of  the  New 
Testament  before  the  year  180,  and  this  literature  is  unintelligible  without 
the  person  of  Christ,  with  which  it  is  entirely  concerned."  (Die  Haiipt- 
problemc  der  Lcbeu-Jcsu-Forschimg,  2  Aufl.,  1906,  p.  13).  Notice  the 
highly-coloured  phrases  (the  execution  of  Jesus,  the  person  of  Christ !)  and 
the  word  "already,"  by  means  of  which  ho  tries  to  convey  the  impression 
that  the  witnesses  quoted  were  remarkably  early,  and  therefore  deserve 
unlimited  confidence. 


THE  KOMAN  WITNESSES  57 

of  an  historical  Jesus,  at  all  events  none  of  them  ever 
contested  it.  The  objection  is  futile,  because  its  assump- 
tion is  false.  The  Gnostics  of  the  second  century  really 
questioned  the  historical  existence  of  Jesus  by  their  docetic 
conception ;  in  other  words,  they  believed  only  in  a  meta- 
physical and  ideal,  not  an  historical  and  real,  Christ.1  The 
whole  polemic  of  the  Christians  against  the  Gnostics  was 
based  essentially  on  the  fact  that  the  Gnostics  denied  the 
historicity  of  Jesus,  or  at  least  put  it  in  a  subordinate 
position. 

Moreover,  how  much  has  survived  of  the  attacks  on 
Christianity  by  its  opponents  ?  Has  not  the  Church 
been  careful  from  the  first  to  suppress  or  destroy  every- 
thing that  might  endanger  its  interests'?  Did  it  not  burn 
the  anti-Christian  writings  of  Porphyry  ?  Was  not  the 
valuable  library  of  Alexandria  sacrificed  to  the  zeal  of 
fanatical  monks  in  the  year  391,  and  were  not  the 
greatest  intellectual  treasures  of  antiquity  contained  in 
it  ?  Who  can  say  what  evidences  against  Christianity 
did  not  perish  in  it  ?  Even  the  work  of  Celsus,  the  one 
attack  on  Christianity  of  which  we  have  much  knowledge, 
is  known  to  us  only  from  Origeii's  reply  to  it.  This  work, 
moreover,  belongs  to  the  second  half  of  the  second  century, 
and  is,  therefore,  incapable  of  proving  anything.2  Would 
it  be  remarkable  at  all  that  no  pagan  should  take  the  trouble 
to  contest  the  historicity  of  Jesus,  assuming  this  to  be  the 
case  ?  At  the  time  when  the  pagan  reaction  against 
Christianity  began — namely,  in  the  second  century — the 
Jesus-story  was  already  firmly  rooted  in  tradition.  Like 
the  Jews,  the  pagan  writers  confined  themselves  in  their 
polemic  to  the  Christian  tradition,  as  they  were  bound  to 
do.  To  make  research  in  the  archives  about  a  subject 

1  See  Wolfgang  Scliultz,  Dokumeiitc  der  Gnosis,  1910. 

2  Yet  Origen  himself  makes  Celsus  say  :  "  You  feed  us  with  fables,  and 
cannot  give  them  a  shade  of  plausibility,  although   some   of   you,  like 
drunken  men,  who  lay  hands  on  themselves,  have  modified  the  texts  of  the 
gospels  three  or  four  or  more  times,  in  order  to  escape  the  criticisms  we 
direct  against  you"  (Contra  Cclsuvi,  II,  26  and  27). 


58  THE  ROMAN  WITNESSES 

was  not  the  practice  of  ancient  historical  writers.  "  There 
was  in  ancient  times,"  says  the  ecclesiastical  historian 
Hausrath,  "  hardly  any  interest  in  historical  truth  as 
such,  but  only  in  ideal  truth.  There  are  very  few  cases 
in  which  an  ancient  historian  put  himself  the  question 
what  had  really  happened  and  what  was  merely  said  to 
have  happened."  Even  if  anyone  had  desired  to  inquire 
into  the  truth  of  the  gospel  "story"  and  go  deeply  into 
the  subject,  he  would  have  been  quite  unable  to  do  so 
after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the  dispersion  of 
the  Jews. 

Finally,  was  no  doubt  expressed  by  pagans  as  to  the 
existence  of  Jesus  because  it  was  firmly  established,  or 
because  at  the  time  when  we  look  for  some  doubter  no 
one  really  affirmed  it  ?  We  await  an  answer  to  this 
question.  Our  opponents  ask :  If  Jesus  was  not  an 
historical  personage,  how  is  it  that  no  one  ever  doubted 
his  existence  ?  We  reply  with  the  further  question : 
Granting  that  he  was  an  historical  personage,  how  is  it 
that  not  only  does  the  Talmud  never  mention  him,  but, 
apart  from  the  gospels,  not  a  single  work  belonging  to 
the  early  Christian  period  gives  us  any  intimate  detail 
about  the  life  of  this  personage  ?  Examine  Paul's 
Epistles  !  As  we  shall  show  in  the  next  chapter,  they 
do  not  tell  a  single  special  fact  about  the  life  of  Jesus. 
Bead  the  other  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament — Peter, 
John,  James,  Jude,  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews — and 
the  letter  of  Clement  to  the  Corinthians,  the  letter  of 
Barnabas,  the  Pastor  of  Hernias,  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  etc.  Nowhere  in  any  single  one  of  these  early 
Christian  documents  do  we  find  even  the  slenderest 
reference  to  the  mere  man  Jesus,  or  to  the  historical 
personality  of  Jesus  as  such,  from  which  we  might  infer 
that  the  author  had  a  close  acquaintance  with  it.  His 
life,  as  it  is  described  in  the  gospels,  in  all  its  human 

1  Kleinc  Schriftcn,  p.  124. 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES  59 

detail,  seems  to  have  been  entirely  unknown  to  these 
authors.  His  speeches  and  sayings  are  hardly  ever 
quoted,  and  where  this  is  done,  as  in  the  Epistle  of 
James  or  Acts,  they  are  not  quoted  as  sayings  of  Jesus. 
We  have  no  feeling  whatever  that  these  documents  know 
anything  of  an  historical  Jesus ;  the  little  that  could  be 
quoted  to  the  contrary,  such  as  the  passage  in  the 
supposed  speech  of  Peter  (Acts,  x,  38),  is  so  obviously 
due  to  a  later  tampering  with  the  text  and  so  absurd  that 
we  cannot  pay  it  any  serious  attention.  The  earlier 
Christian  literature  is  acquainted  with  a  Jesus-god,  a  god- 
man,  a  heavenly  high-priest  and  saviour  Jesus,  a  meta- 
physical spirit,  descending  from  heaven  to  earth,  assuming 
human  form,  dying,  and  rising  again ;  but  it  knows 
nothing  whatever  about  a  merely  human  Jesus,  the 
amiable  author  of  fine  moral  sentiments,  the  "  unique  " 
personality  of  liberal  Protestantism.  There  is  therefore 
nothing  in  the  objection  that  no  one  at  that  time 
questioned  the  existence  of  such  a  person.  Those  who 
attach  importance  to  such  doubts  simply  assume  the 
correctness  of  the  liberal-theological  view  of  the  origin 
of  Christianity.  If  this  view  is  false,  if  the  transforma- 
tion of  Jesus  into  an  historical  person  only  occurred  at  a 
relatively  late  stage  (the  first  half  of  the  second  century), 
the  absence  of  any  doubt  about  the  historical  existence  of 
Jesus  before  that  time  is  quite  intelligible.  In  any  case 
it  is  logically  absurd  ("  lucus  a  non  lucendo  ")  to  deduce 
from  the  circumstance  that  no  one,  apparently,  expressed 
any  doubt  as  to  the  existence  of  Jesus  the  fact  that  he  p^ 
actually  existed. 

After  this  complete  rejection  of  the  evidence  of  profane 
literature  in  regard  to  an  historical  Jesus,  we  need  hardly 
linger  over  the  arguments  that  may  be  drawn  from  other 
supposed  relics  of  his  time  and  environment.  There  is 
still  at  Treves  the  holy  coat  for  which  the  Koman  soldiers 
cast  lots  at  the  foot  of  the  cross.  There  is  still  in  the 
Lateran  at  Rome  the  stairway  which  Jesus  ascended  on 


60 


THE  EOMAN  WITNESSES 


entering  the  palace  of  Pilate.  Then  there  are  the 
innumerable  fragments  of  the  cross  pointing  to  the 
drama  of  Golgotha,  the  innumerable  holy  nails,  the 
vinegar-sponge,  the  veil  of  Veronica,  the  shroud  in  which 
the  Saviour  was  wrapped,  the  swaddling-clothes  of  the 
infant  Jesus,  and,  last  but  not  least,  the  holy  prepuce. 
There  are  indeed  plenty  of  "historical  documents  "—for 
those  who  loish  to  believe.  They  must  be  sought, 
however,  not  in  literature,  but  in  churches  and  chapels 
and  other  "holy  places,"  where  they  prove  their  authen- 
ticity by  the  "  blessing  "  which  flows  from  them  into  the 
Church's  coffers.  But  we  will  be  content  with  our  survey 
of  profane  witnesses.  The  improper  use  that  has  hitherto 
been  made  by  theologians  of  these  witnesses  entails  a 
careful  examination.  For  our  part  we  can  only  regard 
any  attempt  to  prove  the  existence  of  an  historical  Jesus 
by  these  supposed  profane  witnesses  as  a  sign  of  intel- 
lectual unscrupulousness  or  lamentable  superficiality. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 


THE  less  evidence  we  find  for  the  historicity  of  Jesus  in 
profane  writers,  the  greater  becomes  the  interest  of  those 
who  maintain  it  in  a  witness  by  whom  the  historical 
Jesus  is  unequivocally  affirmed.  Such  an  unequivocal 
witness  we  have,  according  to  the  prevailing  view,  in  the 
so-called  Epistles  of  the  apostle  Paul.  Hence  Paul  is 
the  piece  de  resistance  for  the  theologian  in  regard  to  his 
belief  in  Jesus.  He  is  the  "  surest  foundation,"  the 
4 'unshakable  cornerstone,"  the  "irrefragable  witness" 
for  the  fact  that  a  Jesus  did  really  live,  and  was  crucified 
and  buried,  and  rose  again  from  the  dead.  So  convinced 
indeed  is  historical  theology  of  the  absolute  worth  of  this 
witness  that  it  fancies  it  can  silence  all  scepticism  about 
the  historicity  of  Jesus  by  merely  pointing  to  Paul.  It 
seems  to  think  that  no  one  can  seriously  dispose  of  the 
testimony  of  Paul  without  declaring  that  the  Apostle's 
letters  are  spurious.  We  read,  for  instance,  in  von 
Soden's  work  on  the  Pauline  Epistles  :  "  They  afford  so 
strong  a  proof  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus  that  no  one  but 
Drews  has  ever  ventured  to  deny  this  historicity  without 
contesting  the  genuineness  of  the  Pauline  Epistles " 
(p.  29) .  The  orthodox  theologian  Beth  also  observes  : 
"  In  this  case  Drews  must  really  be  charged  with 
negligence  before  the  tribunal  of  his  own  theory,  since 
he  admitted  the  genuineness  of  some  of  the  Epistles  and 
found  no  reason  to  doubt  the  historical  existence  of  Paul. 
In  order  to  attain  his  end  within  the  limits  of  his  own 
theory  and  destroy  all  the  evidences  for  Jesus,  he  ought 
also  to  have  contested  the  existence  of  Paul."1 

1  Beth,  Hat  Jesus  gelebt?,  p.  35. 
61 


62  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

Certainly,  it  would  be  simplest  to  say  at  once  that  the 
Epistles  of  Paul  are  spurious,  and  thus  destroy  the  value 
of  their  testimony  to  the  existence  of  an  historical  Jesus. 
This  the  theologians  would  assuredly  like  us  to  do,  because, 
as  things  are  in  Germany,  the  genuineness  of  at  least  the 
four  chief  Epistles  (Komans,  G-alatians,  and  the  two  to  the 
Corinthians)  is  so  firmly  held  by  them  that  any  doubt 
about  it  is  at  once  rejected  by  them  as  "not  to  be  taken 
seriously."  It  would  thus  be  an  excellent  means  of 
discrediting  the  whole  tendency  of  the  Christ-myth  in  the 
eyes  of  the  general  public,  and  of  all  who  swear  on  the 
word  of  professors  of  theology.  Who  reads  to-day  Bruno 
Bauer's  Kritik  der  Paulinischen  Brief e  (1852),  in  which 
the  first  attempt  was  made  to  show  the  spuriousness  of 
all  the  Epistles  ascribed  to  Paul  ?  That  inconvenient 
scholar  has  so  long  been  slighted  by  theologians,  who 
have  frightened  readers  from  him  by  depreciatory  remarks 
on  his  work,  that  it  was  thought  quite  safe  to  continue  to 
ignore  him.  When,  moreover,  the  Swiss  scholar  Steck 
concludes,  in  a  thorough  and  learned  investigation,  that 
the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  is  spurious  (1888),  that  is 
merely  "  an  extraordinary  perversity  of  criticism,"  an 
"  instance  of  pushing  radical  criticism  too  far,"  an  attempt 
that  one  need  not  linger  to  refute.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  criticism  of  English  writers  (Edwin  Johnson, 
Robertson,  and  Whittaker)  seemed  to  be  quite  devoid 
of  danger,  as  few  theologians  have  a  command  of  the 
English  language.  It  is  true  that  in  Holland  a  theo- 
logical school  has  endeavoured  for  thirty  years  to  show 
the  spuriousness  of  the  Epistles  of  Paul ;  but  why  should 
that  trouble  people  in  Germany?  Dutch  is  a  language 
that  one  has  no  occasion  to  learn  at  the  universities.  One 
may,  therefore,  take  it  for  granted  that  the  works  of  the 
Dutch  will  not  be  very  seriously  studied  in  Germany. 
Have  not  the  Dutch,  in  fact,  at  a  "  Congress  of  free 
Christianity  and  religious  progress,"  thanked  German 
historical  theologians  for  the  distinguished  services  which 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  63 

they  have  rendered  to  the  whole  civilised  world?  We 
frequently  hear  that  kind  of  thing.  The  Dutch  savants 
may,  therefore,  be  regarded  indulgently  when  they  strike 
a  path  of  their  own  in  their  own  country  and  contest 
statements  which  are  taken  for  granted  in  Germany. 

It  is  amusing  to  read  German  theologians  writing  on 
their  Dutch  colleagues.  According  to  Beth,  "  the  Amster- 
dam writer  Loman  has  very  finely  shown  how  one  may 
manufacture  out  of  air  a  proof  that  Paul  was  merely 
invented  in  the  second  century  as  a  preacher  of  univer- 
salistic  Christianity  "  (p.  35).  According  to  Jiilicher,  it  is 
a  sign  of  "uncritical  temper"  to  doubt  whether  Paul 
wrote  the  Epistles  to  which  his  name  is  attached — a 
temper  which,  "  as  soon  as  it  perceives  a  difficulty,  which 
may  occur  in  such  documents  just  as  well  as  in  a 
Babylonian  brick,  cries  '  Spurious ! '  and  recognises  no 
shades  of  difference";  and  he  advises  it,  with  equal  bad 
taste  and  foolishness,  to  consign  itself  to  "  work  in  subter- 
raneous Acheron"  (p.  25).  Yet  these  theologians  are 
either  totally  ignorant  of,  or  have  only  a  very  superficial 
acquaintance  with,  the  work  of  the  Dutch.  This  is  clear 
when  von  Soden  writes :  "  No  one  has  yet  attempted  to 
give  •  us  an  intelligible  account  of  the  origin  of  these 
Epistles  in  the  second  century  "  (p.  29)  ;  and  J.  Weiss 
says  :  "  The  Pauline  Epistles  are,  as  is  known  [!  ?] ,  denied 
to  the  apostle  Paul  by  the  Dutch  school  and  by  Kalthoff ; 
but  there  is  no  plausible  hypothesis  as  to  their  origin  in 
any  other  way,  no  chronology  of  the  various  strata  of  the 
Epistles,  and  no  answer  to  many  other  questions  suggested 
by  the  denial  "  (p.  97) .  Are  Weiss  and  von  Soden  ignorant 
of  the  work  of  van  Manen,  whose  Bomerbrief  has  been 
excellently  translated  into  German  by  Schlager  (Leipsic, 
1906),  while  Whittaker  has  given  a  careful  synopsis  of 
his  other  books  in  his  Origins  of  Christianity  (2nd  ed., 
1909)  ?  And  if  they  are  acquainted  with  him,  how  came 
they  to  pen  such  sentences,  seeing  that  van  Manen  has 
done  in  a  very  thorough  manner  precisely  what  they  say 


64  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

ought  to  be  done  by  those  who  deny  Paul's  authorship  ? 
The  truth  is  that  historical  theology  in  Germany  needs  a 
genuine  Paul  as  an  indispensable  witness  to  its  historical 
Jesus,  and  it  must,  therefore,  ignore  the  Dutch  and  those 
7?iust-be  uncritical  and  confused  thinkers  who  venture  to 
dispute  the  credibility  of  their  witness. 

Historical  theology  finds  the  historical  Jesus  in  the 
Pauline  Epistles,  because  it  is  determined  to — in  fact, 
must — find  him  there,  or  else  the  whole  of  its  artificial 
historical  construction  of  the  origin  of  Christianity  remains 
in  the  air  without  any  support.  It  accepts  without  scrutiny 
not  only  the  truth  of  the  evangelical  accounts  of  Jesus,  but 
whatever  Acts  says  about  Paul ;  and  since  it  regards  Paul 
as  the  author  of  the  Epistles,  it  naturally  finds  it  easy  to 
see  a  confirmation  of  these  things  in  the  Pauline  Epistles. 
It  refers  the  mentions  of  Jesus  in  the  Epistles  to  an 
historical  Jesus  because,  anterior  to  any  inquiry,  from  the 
gospels  it  is  convinced  of  his  reality ;  and  it  therefore 
never  dreams  of  referring  the  passages  in  the  Epistles 
which  deal  with  Jesus  to  any  other  than  their  own — that 
is,  the  supposed  historical  Jesus  of  the  gospels.  It  regards 
as  "  unmethodical "  any  man  who  would  put  a  different 
interpretation  on  those  passages,  because  the  method 
employed  by  themselves,  and  regarded  by  them  as  the 
sole  correct  method,  leads  to  the  result  that  they  desire. 
They  are,  therefore,  in  a  vicious  circle  in  their  inquiry 
into  the  genuineness  of  the  Pauline  Epistles  and  their 
testimony  to  the  historical  Jesus. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  their  assertion  that  the  existence 
of  an  historical  Jesus  is  the  very  foundation  of  the 
Epistles  of  Paul  is  not  the  result,  but  the  assumption^  of 
their  method.  As  such  it  originated,  quite  independently 
of  their  method.  In  all  investigation  the  method  is 
directed  according  to  the  assumption  that  is  made  and 
the  end  to  be  attained.  But  if  an  inquirer  is  allowed  to 
postulate  the  existence  of  an  historical  Jesus  and  confirm 
this  assumption  by  his  methods,  it  can  hardly  be  considered 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  65 

a  sign  of  partisanship  and  prejudice  to  oppose  the 
assumption  on  the  ground  of  facts,  and  submit  that  such 
methods  can  hardly  lead  to  a  satisfactory  result.  Historical 
theology  has  hitherto  endeavoured  to  interpret  tradition 
in  the  sense  of  its  historical  Jesus,  and  has  lost  its  way  in 
a  labyrinth  of  difficulties,  contradictions,  arid  insoluble 
problems.  We  raise  the  question  whether  the  documents 
may  not  be  better  and  more  simply  interpreted  in  the 
opposite  sense,  and  whether  there  is  any  need  at  all  to 
interpret  the  tradition  historically.  On  which  side  the 
truth  is  found  cannot  be  determined  by  the  starting-point 
of  the  inquiry,  but  only  by  showing  which  interpretation 
best  squares  with  the  facts  and  which  can  be  most 
easily  established.  In  any  case  our  method  cannot  be 
pronounced  wrong  because,  starting  from  a  different 
assumption,  we  reach  conclusions  other  than  those  of 
the  theologian ;  nor  may  one  charge  us  with  "  confusion  " 
or  appeal  against  us  in  the  name  of  "  sound  "  investigation 
and  science  when  our  inquiry  into  the  New  Testament 
documents  leads  us  to  deny  the  historicity  of  Jesus,  as 
long  as  it  is  not  proved  that  our  assumption  is  absurd. 

1.— THE  PROOFS  OF  THE  HISTORICITY  OF 
JESUS  IN  PAUL. 

The  starting  -  point  and  postulate  of  the  Pauline 
doctrine  of  salvation  is  the  attitude  of  man  towards  the 
law.  The  law  was  originally  given  to  men  by  God  for 
their  good.  It  is  to  teach  them  what  is  sinful.  It  is  to 
quicken  their  consciousness  of  evil  and  show  them  the 
way  to  become  better.  It  should  be  to  them,  as  Paul 
puts  it,  a  teacher  and  breeder  of  righteousness.  In  reality 
it  has  proved  a  curse  to  them,  and,  instead  of  saving  them, 
it  has  forced  them  deeper  into  the  slavery  of  evil  and  sin. 
God  therefore  took  pity  on  men,  and  sent  to  them  Christ, 
his  "  son,"  to  take  from  them  the  yoke  of  the  law. 
Originally  a  supernatural  being,  buried  in  God  and 

F 


66  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

co-operating  in  the  creation  of  the  world,  Christ,  at  the 
will  of  his  father,  exchanged  the  glory  of  heaven  for  the 
poverty  and  straits  of  earth,  in  order  to  come  upon  the 
earth  in  the  form  of  a  slave,  a  man  among  men,  for  the 
redemption  of  mortals.  He  gave  himself  freely,  for  the 
salvation  of  men,  to  death  on  the  cross.  What  no 
sacrifice  had  as  yet  been  able  to  accomplish  (a  proof  of 
the  powerlessness  of  the  law),  complete  delivery  from 
sin  and  from  death,  which  had  come  into  the  world  with 
sin — was  attained  by  the  sacrificial  death  of  him  in  whom 
was  concentrated  the  whole  being  of  humanity.  In  his 
death  he  died  the  death  of  all.  By  his  resurrection  he 
triumphed  over  death.  By  the  rejection  and  casting  aside 
of  his  human  nature  in  death  the  God-man  resumed  his 
essential  divinity.  In  discarding  the  veil  of  flesh  and 
returning  to  his  father  in  transfigured  form,  as  a  pure 
spirit  and  being  reunited  to  him,  he  set  men  an  example 
how  they  were  to  attain  their  true  nature  by  the  sacrifice 
of  their  carnal  personality.  More  than  this,  indeed,  he 
thereby  obtained  for  them  redemption  from  the  bonds  of 
the  flesh,  lifted  them  above  the  limitations  of  earth,  and 
secured  for  them  eternal  life  in  and  with  the  father. 
Man  has  only  to  put  himself  in  personal  relation  to  him, 
to  unite  intimately  with  him,  to  accept  and  assimilate  the 
belief  in  his  redeeming  death  (to  crucify  himself  with 
Christ),  and  show  this  by  a  love  of  his  fellow-men,  and 
he  will  have  a  share  in  Christ's  exaltation,  and  so  attain 
redemption.  The  law  therefore  ceases  to  prescribe  his 
conduct.  By  his  union  with  Christ  he  is  dead  to  the  law 
and  released  from  its  dominion.  The  demons,  under 
whose  curse  he  had  hitherto  lain,  have  now  no  power 
over  him.  The  life  of  which  he  has  but  a  limited  share 
here  on  earth  will  be  enjoyed  under  better  conditions  in 
heaven.  Christ  is  therefore  the  ''mediator"  between 
God  and  man,  destroying  the  barrier  between  them.  He 
is  the  "  saviour  "  who  heals  the  maladies  of  earthly  life, 
corporal  or  spiritual,  the  "  deliverer  "  from  the  darkness 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  67 

of  earthly  existence  and  death,  the  "  God-man,"  the  true 
foundation  and  end  of  all  religious  action. 

Any  man  who  reflects  impartially  on  this  theory  will 
find  it  difficult  to  believe  that  there  is  question  here  of  an 
external  historical  process,  an  historical  individual.  The 
idea  comes  closest,  perhaps,  to  that  of  the  Gnostics,  and 
especially  close  to  that  of  the  Alexandrian  religious 
philosopher  Philo,  an  older  contemporary  of  Paul,  and 
his  principle  of  the  Logos,  which  we  afterwards  find 
blended  with  the  Christian  belief  in  the  gospel  of  John. 
Christ  seems  to  be  in  Paul  another  name  for  the  idea  of 
humanity,  a  comprehensive  expression  of  the  ideal  unity 
of  all  men,  set  forth  as  a  personal  being.  Just  in  the 
same  way  Philo  conceives  the  fullness  of  the  divine  ideas 
personified  in  the  shape  of  the  Logos,  the  "  mediator," 
"  son  of  God,"  and  "  light  of  the  world,"  and  blends  the 
Logos  with  the  ideal  man,  the  idea  of  man.  And  just  as 
Christ  is  made  flesh  and  assumes  human  form,  so  Philo's 
Logos  descends  from  his  heavenly  sphere  and  enters  the 
world  of  sense,  to  give  strength  to  the  good,  and  save  men 
from  sin,  and  lead  them  to  their  true  home,  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  and  their  heavenly  father. 

This  idea  of  the  redemption  of  men  by  the  "  son  "  of 
the  most-high  God  is  very  ancient,  and  was  widespread 
in  early  times.  In  the  Babylonian  religion  the  redeemer 
Marduk  is  sent  upon  the  earth  by  his  father  Ea  to  save 
men  from  their  spiritual  maladies  and  moral  perversity. 
The  Greeks  worshipped  similar  "  sons "  of  God  and 
benefactors  of  men  in  Heracles,  Dionysos,  and  Jason  or 
Jasios  (the  Greek  name  for  Jesus),  who  likewise  had  a 
heavenly  commission  to  redeem  men,  and  were  taken 
back  into  the  circle  of  the  blessed  after  a  premature  and 
impressive  death.  The  idea  flourished  chiefly,  however, 
in  the  religions  of  nearer  Asia  and  North  Africa,  among 
the  Phrygians,  the  Syrians,  and  the  Egyptians,  who 
worshipped  in  their  Attis,  Adonis,  and  Osiris  (respectively) 
a  god  who  suffered,  died,  and  rose  again  for  humanity, 


68  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

and  expressed  their  belief  in  mysterious  cults  which  are 
known  as  "  mysteries."  Among  the  Mandseic  or  Gnostic 
sects,  which  cultivated  a  peculiar  form  of  piety,  apart 
from  the  official  religion,  about  the  beginning  of  the 
present  era,  and  to  which,  in  a  general  sense,  the  Jewish 
sect  of  the  Essenes  seems  to  have  belonged,  the  belief  in 
a  divine  saviour  and  mediator  was  the  very  centre  of  their 
religious  theory.  Moreover,  the  Jewish  apocalyptic  of 
the  time,  which  expected  a  speedy  end  of  the  world, 
leaned  towards  this  view,  and  combined  the  form  of  the 
mediating  God  with  its  idea  of  the  Messiah,  the  expected 
saviour  of  Israel  from  its  political  and  social  oppression. 
In  the  prophet  Daniel  the  redeemer  is  described  by  the 
Gnostic  name  of  "  the  son  of  man."  Further,  this  idea 
of  a  suffering  and  dying  saviour  was  unmistakably  con- 
nected with  the  course  of  nature.  It  arose  from  the 
sight  of  the  fate  of  the  sun  or  the  moon,  as  they  rose  and 
sank  in  their  paths,  as  they  waned,  disappeared,  and  rose 
again,  in  conjunction  with  the  experience  of  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  nature  every  year.  It  was  expressed 
by  a  belief  in  a  divine  son  and  saviour,  who  sacrifices 
himself  for  his  fellows,  incurs  death,  descends  into  the 
underworld,  struggles  against  the  demons  of  hell,  and 
after  a  time  rises  again  from  the  tomb  and  brings  a  new 
life  to  the  world.  Even  the  Israelitic  prophets  are  not 
uninfluenced  by  this  idea.  In  the  fifty-third  chapter  of 
Isaiah  we  encounter  the  form  of  the  so-called  "  suffering 
servant  of  God,"  who  is  mocked,  despised,  and  sacrificed 
in  expiation  of  the  sins  of  his  people,  but  rises  again  in 
glory,  and  is  borne  to  the  splendours  of  heaven.  It  is 
true  that  in  this  the  prophet  immediately  contemplated 
the  fortune  of  his  people,  which  he  conceived  as  the 
general  expiatory  victim  for  the  rest  of  mankind.  But, 
as  Gunkel  rightly  observes,  the  figure  of  a  suffering  and 
dying  saviour  is  discerned  in  the  background  in  this 
passage.  Gressmann  has  even  traced  the  fifty-third 
chapter  of  Isaiah  to  a  "  ritual  song  "  derived  from  the 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  69 

mysteries,  which  was  sung  by  the  initiated  on  the  day  of 
the  death  of  God,  and  has  clearly  pointed  out  the  mystery- 
character  of  the  whole  passage.1 

(a)  Simple  Proofs. — The  "Christ-myth"  regards  the 
fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah  as  the  real  germ-cell  of 
Christianity.  On  it  is  based  the  Christian  belief  that  the 
Messiah,  whom  the  Jews  expected,  has  already  appeared 
in  human  form  and  servile  lowliness,  and  sacrificed 
himself  for  the  sins  of  his  people,  in  order  that  thus  the 
condition  might  be  fulfilled  without  which  the  desired 
"  kingdom  of  God "  could  not  be  established  :  the 
complete  fidelity  to  the  law  and  sinlessness  of  the 
Israelites.2  In  the  fact  of  his  previous  earthly  appearance 
they  saw  a  guarantee  of  the  speedy  coming  of  the  Messiah 
in  all  his  heavenly  majesty,  and  the  combination  of  the 
figure  of  the  "servant  of  God"  with  that  of  the  "just 
man  "  in  Wisdom8  confirmed  the  belief  that  the  judgment 
of  the  world  was  near,  at  which  the  just  would  be  raised 
to  heaven  and  the  godless  thrust  into  eternal  damnation. 
Paul  enlarged  and  deepened  this  idea  by  introducing  it 
into  a  more  general  frame  of  ideas  and  deducing  its 
metaphysical  consequences.  He  gave  greater  clearness 
to  the  pagan  idea  of  a  suffering,  dying,  and  risen  saviour- 
god,  which  must  have  been  familiar  to  the  apostle  from 
his  Cilician  home,  and  gave  it  life  by  infusing  into  it  the 
spirit  of  the  old  mystery-religions.4  It  follows  from  this 
that  the  supposed  historical  fact  of  a  crucified  Jesus  is 
not  absolutely  necessary  to  explain  the  origin  of  the 
Paulinian  doctrine  of  redemption,  and  the  question  arises 
whether  the  letters  which  have  come  down  to  us  under 
the  name  of  Paul  contain  any  reference  whatever  to 
an  historical  Jesus.  The  negative  reply,  which  the 

1  Der  Ursprung  der  israelitisch-judischen  Eschatologie,  1905,  p.  322. 

2  Isaiah  Iviii  ;  Ix,  21. 

3  ii,  12  ;  iii,  10  ;  iv,  7  ;  and  xiii,  5. 

4  This  mystery-character  of   Paulinism    has    lately   been   put   beyond 
question   by   Reitzenstein  in    his  essay,   Die   hellenistischen  Mysterien- 
Religionen,  1910. 


70  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

"  Christ-myth "  gives  to  this  question,  has  caused  great 
agitation  among  the  theologians. 

What,  they  cry  with  one  voice,  Paul  knew  nothing  of 
an  historical  Jesus  !  His  Jesus  Christ  was  merely  an 
"imaginary  being,"  the  mere  "idea"  of  a  God-man 
sacrificing  himself  !  There  is  no  historical  personage,  no 
real  event,  behind  the  fact  of  the  death  on  the  cross  and 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  which  is  the  central  part  of 
the  Pauline  system  !  Is  not  Christ  described  by  Paul  as  a 
real  man?  "Does  not,"  von  Soden  asks,  "  his  theory  of 
redemption  through  Christ  imply  his  full  humanity? 
God  sent  his  son  in  the  form  of  sinful  flesh  on  account  of 
sin,  and  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh."1  The  apostle  speaks 
of  the  "blood"  of  Christ,  by  which  men  are  justified.2 
"  In  vivid  language  he  represents  to  the  Corinthians  the 
entrance  of  Jesus  into  human  existence  in  order  to 
stimulate  them  to  contribute  generously  to  the  funds  of 
the  early  Christians  (2  Cor.  viii,  9)  :  '  For  ye  know  the 
grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that,  though  he  was  rich, 
yet  for  your  sakes  he  became  poor,  that  ye  through  his 
poverty  might  be  rich  ';  and  even  more  vividly  he  repre- 
sents him  to  the  Philippians  as  the  model  of  humility 
(ii,  5)  :  '  Let  this  mind  be  in  you,  which  was  also  in 
Christ  Jesus,  who,  being  in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it 
not  robbery  to  be  equal  with  God ;  but  made  himself  of 
no  reputation,  and  took  upon  him  the  form  of  a  servant, 
and  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  man.'  How  can  Drews 
say  in  face  of  such  passages  (to  which  Weiss  adds  the 
allusions  to  the  righteousness  [Eom.  v,  18,  19],  the  love 
[Gal.  ii,  20] ,  and  the  obedience  [Phil,  ii,  8]  of  Jesus)  : 
'  The  whole  earthly  life  of  Jesus  is  entirely  immaterial 
to  Paul'?"  (p.  32). 

I  must,  unfortunately,  adhere  to  my  view  in  spite  of 
the  instruction  given  to  me  by  theologians.  What  do 
the  quoted  passages  prove  ?  "  That  Paul  is  thinking 

1  Romans  viii,  3.  2  Romans  iii,  25. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  71 

of  the  humanity  of  his  Christ,  not  in  the  sense  of  an 
ideal  humanity,  but  of  a  real  human  existence  "  (Soden, 
p.  31).     Certainly.      But  where  and  when  did  I  question 
this  ?    It  is  precisely  the  essential  point  of  my  theory  that, 
in  the  early  Christian  and  Pauline  view,  the  real  coming  of 
the  Messiah  is  preceded  by  his  appearance  in  human  shape. 
According  to  Isaiah,  it  is  not  due  to  the  powerlessness  of 
God,  but  to  the  sins  of  the  people,  that  the  fulfilment  of 
the  promise  of  a  Messiah  is  delayed  (Is.  Iviii;  Ixx,  1).     In 
the   fifty-third  chapter  the   prophet   had  spoken  of  the 
"  servant  of  God  "  who  takes  on  himself  the  sins  of  men, 
and  thus  "  justifies  "  them.     If  this  figure  of  the  servant 
of   God   and   just   man   is   associated  with   that  of   the 
Messiah,  and  the  idea  is  inspired  that  the  servant  of  God 
is  to  be  understood,  not  in  the  sense  of  the  people  of 
Israel  generally,   but  as  a  single  individual  who   offers 
himself   for   men,    in   the   same  way  as   in   heathenism 
originally  one  individual  has  to  sacrifice  himself  annually 
for  all,  it  would  naturally  follow  that  the  individual  who 
thus  sacrificed   himself  would  not  merely  have  human 
features,  but  would  have  to  be  a  real  man,  otherwise  he 
could  not  expiate  the  sins  of   men.     None  but  a  man 
could,  according  to  the  general  feeling  of  antiquity,  take 
on  himself  the  guilt  of  other  men.     Only  as  man  was 
"  the  just  "  in  Solomon's  Wisdom  conceived,  and  he  calls 
himself  "  servant  of  God  "  (ii,  13)  and  represents  God  as 
his  "  father  "  (xvi,  18).    Indeed,  even  the  suffering  servant 
of  God  in  Isaiah  was  so  unmistakably  described  as  man 
that   the   most   resolute   elevation   of   his   figure  to  the 
supernatural  and  metaphysical  world,  such  as  we  find  in 
Paul,    could    not   obliterate   his   human    features.     The 
question  is,  whether  these  features  are  those  of  a  real, 
that  is  to   say  historical,   man :    whether  the  heavenly 
being  which  must  appear  as  a  man  according  to  Paul 
came  upon  the  earth  at  a  definite  moment  in  history. 

Are  the  above-mentioned  characters  of  the  Christ-figure 
such  that  they  necessarily  imply  an  historical  personality? 


72  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

A  man  must  be  absolutely  wrapped  in  theological 
prejudice  not  to  recognise  that  they  are  wholly  borrowed 
from  the  figure  of  the  servant  of  God  in  Isaiah :  his  love, 
his  righteousness,  his  humility,1  his  obedience,  his  poverty, 
and  even  his  position  under  the  law  (Gal.  iv,  4),  which 
follows  at  once,  in  the  case  of  a  Jew,  from  his  obedience, 
and  was  for  Paul  the  necessary  condition  for  releasing 
from  the  law  the  rest  of  men  who  were  subject  to  it  (v) . 
This,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  pointed  out  to  the 
"  historical  "  theologians  by  their  colleague  Wrede. 
"  Only  in  one  contingency,"  he  says,  "  would  the  human 
personality  of  Jesus  be  a  model :  if  the  doctrine  of  Christ 
represented  an  idealising  and  apotheosis  of  Jesus  in  such 
wise  that  the  historical  reality  were  visible  through  it. 
This  is  certainly  not  the  case  [!] .  Are  the  humility, 
obedience,  and  love  which  abound  in  the  son  of  God, 
when  he  exchanges  heaven  for  the  miseries  of  earth,  a 
reflection  of  the  compassionate  and  humble  man  Jesus  ? 
Has  Paul  transferred  the  various  traits  of  the  character 
of  Jesus  to  the  heavenly  form  ?  This  has  been  affirmed, 
but  it  is  not  true.  Christ  is  said  to  be  obedient  because 
he  did  not  oppose  the  divine  will  to  send  him  to  save  the 
world,  although  it  cost  him  his  divine  existence  and 
brought  him  to  the  cross ;  humble,  because  he  stooped  to 
the  lowliness  of  earth  :  and  love  must  have  been  his 
motive,  since  his  incarnation  and  death  were  the  greatest 
service  to  mankind.  Such  service  is  naturally  inspired 
by  the  desire  to  serve — by  love.  All  these  ethical  quali- 
fications are,  therefore,  not  derived  from  an  expression  of 
the  moral  character  of  Jesus,  but  originate  in  the  apostle's 
own  theory  of  redemption"* 


1  This  is  also  shown  by  the  first  Epistle  of  Clement,  in  which  the  servant 
of  God  of  Isaiah  is  represented  as  the  "  prototype  "  of  Christ,  and  it  is  said  : 
"  If  the  Lord  [!]  was  so  humble,  what  ought  we,  who  have  been  brought  by 
him  under  the  yoke  of  his  grace,  to  be  ?  "  (xvi,  17).     It  is  very  remarkable 
that  Clement,  instead  of  appealing  to  the  behaviour  of  Jesus  to  show  his 
humility,  relies  on  the  prophet  Isaiah. 

2  Paulus,  Religionsgesch.  Volksbiicher  (1904), p. 85.    Cf.  Martin  Bruckner : 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  73 

But  Paul  represents  Christ  as  "of  the  seed  of  David  " 
and  born  "  of  a  woman  "  (Bom.  i,  3).  Is  not  that  a  plain 
reference  to  an  historical  individual  ?  Unfortunately, 
descent  from  David  is  merely  one  of  the  traditional 
features  of  the  Messiah,  and  consequently  of  his  human 
appearance ;  and,  if  the  Pauline  Christ  was  to  be  a  man 
at  all,  from  whom  could  he  have  been  born  if  not  from 
"  a  woman  "  ?  If  Paul  seems  to  lay  stress  on  this  trivial 
and  necessary  circumstance,  he  may  have  been  induced 
to  do  so  by  Gnostic  tendencies,  which  aimed  at  dissociating 
the  figure  of  the  saviour  from  all  earthly  limitations,  and 
turning  it  into  a  purely  metaphysical  conception  ;  and  he 
therefore  did  not  merely  make  use  of  a  familiar  Jewish 
expression — "  born  of  a  woman  " — which  occurs  more 
than  once  in  the  Bible.1  We  may  add  that  at  least 
liberal  theologians  are,  to  a  great  extent,  convinced  that 
the  "  historical "  Jesus  did  not  descend  from  David,  and 
that  the  genealogies  in  the  gospels,  which  purport  to 
prove  such  descent,  are  later  fabrications  made  with  a 
view  to  establishing  the  Messianic  character  of  the 
Christian  saviour.  Thus  Paul  would  have  departed  from 
the  truth  if  he  had  sought  to  represent  Christ  to  the 
communities  as  a  descendant  of  David ! 

I  need  not  linger  to  show  that  the  many  passages 
which  mention  the  death  and  crucifixion  of  Jesus  do  not, 
as  Weinel  affirms,  prove  the  historicity  of  Christ.  When 
von  Soden  emphatically  calls  attention  to  the  vividness 
with  which  Paul  saw  the  details  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
pointing  to  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  (xv,  4),  in 
which  he  expressly  [!]  says  that  Jesus  was  buried  after 
death  (p.  32),  we  must  say  that  the  procedure  of  our 
opponents  becomes  rather  humorous.  Weinel  charges 
me  with  saying  that  theologians  based  the  historicity  of 
Jesus  on  the  account  of  the  appearances  of  the  risen 

Der  Apostel  Paulus  als  Zewge  wider  den  Christusbild  der  Evangelien  in 
Protest.  Monatshefte,  1906,  355  ff. 
1  Job  xiv,  1 ;  Matthew  xi,  11. 


74  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

Christ  (1  Cor.  xv,  5),  and  concealing  the  fact  that  it  was 
the  preceding  verses,  which  speak  of  the  death  and  burial 
of  Jesus,  that  were  in  question  (p.  108).  I  must  admit 
that  I  had  had  too  high  an  opinion  of  the  theological 
method  of  reasoning.  The  theologians  really  base  the 
historicity  of  Jesus  on  his  death  and  burial — in  spite  of 
Isaiah  liii,  9,  where  there  is  question  of  the  grave  of  the 
servant  of  God.  In  fact,  they  even  base  it  on  the  (equally 
historical !)  fact  of  the  resurrection,  which,  according  to 
Beth,  is  one  of  those  "  features  "  [sic]  of  Jesus  "  which 
presuppose  his  humanity"  (p.  36).  What  idea  must 
theologians  have  of  the  mental  level  of  their  readers  when 
they  expect  to  make  an  impression  on  anyone  with  such 
quotations  as  these  from  Paul ! 

All  that  is  shown  by  these  arguments  adduced  by  the 
theologians  is,  as  I  said  before,  that  they  assumed  the 
existence  of  the  historical  Jesus  and  the  truth  of  the 
gospel  narrative  before  they  began  their  research ;  on  this 
account  they  at  once,  in  the  most  uncritical  way,  refer 
every  passage  in  which  Paul  touches  upon  the  humanity 
of  Christ  to  an  historical  individual,  and  interpret  in  the 
sense  of  the  gospel  narratives  everything  that  is  said 
about  this  man.  Weiss  says  that  the  "  impartial  reader  " 
must  recognise  "  the  historical  fact  of  the  incarnation  and 
the  crucifixion  "  as  the  foundation  of  Paul's  creed.  The 
word  "  historical "  is,  however,  an  addition  for  which  as 
yet  no  justification  has  been  found  in  the  text ;  to  say 
nothing  of  the  circumstance  that  hitherto  no  one,  except 
a  theologian,  has  regarded  the  incarnation  of  a  god  as  an 
''historical  fact."  In  fact,  Paul  himself,  according  to 
Weiss,  was  not  in  a  position  to  conceive  "  purely  a  real 
and  entire  incarnation  of  the  heavenly  Christ,"  and  he 
rightly  points  to  Phil,  ii,  7,  where  the  apostle  does  not 
say :  "  He  became  man  and  was  a  man  in  his  whole 
behaviour,"  but  "  he  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  a  man, 
and  was  found  in  fashion  as  a  man  " — an  expression  that 
has  really  a  distinctly  docetic  colour,  and  suggests  the 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  75 

Gnostic  conception  of  the  Saviour.1  Moreover,  Paul's 
creed  portrays  not  only  the  man  Jesus,  but  also  the  man 
Adam.  These  two  "  men  "  complete  each  other,  according 
to  Paul :  just  as  all  men  sinned  in  Adam,  the  first  man, 
so  they  will  be  saved  by  the  second  man,  Christ.  Anyone 
who  regards  Paul  as  taking  the  man  Christ  to  have  been 
an  historical  fact  must  consistently  also  take  Adam  to 
have  been  an  historical  reality,  as  Dupuis  rightly  observed.2 
When  the  orthodox  hesitate  to  admit  the  historicity  of 
Adam,  because  it  is  too  much  out  of  harmony  with 
modern  views,  they  deprive  themselves  of  the  second 
support  on  which  they  base  their  belief  in  the  historical 
Christ  and  his  work  of  redemption.  For  Paul  one  is  just 
as  much  a  reality  as  the  other.  This  should  be  enough 
to  open  the  minds  of  our  theologians  to  the  character  of 
this  "reality  "  and  its  relation  to  history. 

The  "  evidence  "  which  we  have  so  far  examined  from 
Paul  for  the  existence  of  an  historical  Jesus  may  be  best 
described  as  "  simple."  We  may  trust  that  it  is  not  very 
seriously  advanced  by  its  supporters,  and  is  rather  intended 
for  the  edification  of  the  general  public.  Probably  they 
will  also  not  attach  much  weight  to  the  fact  that  Paul 
reminds  the  Galatians  (iii,  1)  how  "before  their  eyes 
Christ  hath  been  evidently  set  forth,  crucified  among 
them."  That  we  have  here  nothing  more  than  an 
expressive  delineation  of  the  dying  Christ  and  the  need  for 
him  to  die  for  men,  in  order  to  move  the  hearers,  just  as 
we  find  commonly  done  in  a  modern  sermon  in  order  to 
turn  souls  to  Christ,  or  at  the  most,  according  to  Bobertson, 
a  scenic  or  pictorial  representation  of  the  crucified  God 
after  the  fashion  of  the  ancient  mysteries,  and  not  an 
historical  statement,  it  is  surely  unnecessary  to  prove. 
"  If  I  set  forth  anything  before  the  eyes  of  anyone,"  says 
Kurt  Delbriick,  "  there  can  be  no  question  of  a  super- 
natural and  ideal  being  "  (p.  15).  In  that  case  Delbriick 

1  J.  Weiss,  Christus,  die  Anfdngedes  Dogmas,  Relg.  Volksbilcher,  1909, 
p.  62.  a  L'origine  de  tons  Us  cultes,  1794,  ix,  13  ff. 


76  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

must  regard  the  paintings  of  the  Last  Judgment  and 
Hell  by  Michael  Angelo  and  Kubens  as  reproductions  of 
concrete  realities,  or  take  the  ghost  of  Hamlet's  father  to 
be  a  real  personality.  But  the  most  remarkable  deduction 
from  this  phrase  in  Galatians  is  drawn  by  J.  Weiss  in 
his  work  against  Wrede,  Paulus  und  Jesus  (1909),  when 
he  says  in  regard  to  the  "  cross  of  Christ "  :  "  As  he 
[Paul]  utters  these  words,  he  has  before  his  mind  not 
merely  the  concrete  image  of  the  crucified  but  all  the 
accompanying  circumstances,  which  must  have  been 
known  to  him.  Crucifixion  is  a  Roman  punishment ; 
he  must  therefore  have  known  that  the  higher  Roman 
authority,  the  procurator,  was  involved  (!).  And  as,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  doubtless  (!)  regarded  the  Jews  as 
bearing  the  guilt  of  the  death  (there  is  no  proof!),  he 
must  have  had  some  idea  of  the  course  of  the  trial. 
Indeed,  the  figure  of  the  crucified  must  (!)  have  been 
before  his  mind  in  more  than  mere  outline ;  it  must  have 
had  colour,  expression,  vivid  features — otherwise  he  could 
not  have  '  set  it  forth  evidently '  [in  the  Greek  text, 
"  before  the  eyes  "]  to  the  Galatians.  The  expression  un- 
deniably (!)  implies  a  living,  expressive,  pictorial  descrip- 
tion of  the  event,  not  merely  an  impressive  communica- 
tion of  the  fact"  (p.  11).  That  is  what  I  should  call 
"  exegesis."  I  will  permit  myself  one  question  :  whether 
the  representation  of  the  suffering  just  man  in  Isaiah 
(c.  liii)  would  not  suffice  to  enable  one  to  "  set  before 
the  eyes  "  the  terrible  death  of  the  servant  of  God  ? 

Perhaps  someone  will  quote  "  the  twelve  "  to  whom 
Paul  refers  (1  Cor.  xv,  5)  as  a  proof  that  Paul  knew  some 
particular  facts  about  the  life  of  the  historical  Jesus. 
Since  the  work  of  Holsten,1  however,  it  has  been  an  open 
secret  in  the  theological  world  that  "  the  twelve  "  is  a 
later  interpolation  in  the  original  text.  The  theologian 
Brandt  also  regards  "  the  twelve "  as  "a  very  unsafe 

1  Das  Evangelium  des  Paulus,  1880,  p.  224  ff. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  77 

part  of  the  Pauline  text,"  and  believes  it  to  be  a  "  later 
addition  "  j1  and  Seufert  is  convinced  that  it  is  possibly  a 
"very  early  (?)  gloss"  which  was  inserted  in  the  text  in 
order  to  support  with  the  authority  of  the  apostle  Paul 
the  later  idea  of  twelve  apostles.2 

(6)  The  Appearances  of  the  Risen  Christ. — Generally 
speaking,  Paul's  whole  account  of  the  appearances  of  the 
risen  Christ,  as  we  find  it  in  1  Cor.  xv,  is  not  of  a 
character  to  afford  any  evidence  of  the  historicity  of 
Jesus.  Historical  theology  professes  to  attach  much 
importance  to  this  account.  It  sees  in  it  some  confirma- 
tion of  the  theory  that  in  the  resurrection  we  have 
merely  "  visions  "  on  the  part  of  the  Saviour's  disciples. 
In  fact  it  regards  it  as  the  earliest  account  of  the  resur- 
rection that  we  have,  and  having  great  authority  because, 
in  their  opinion,  Paul  relies  directly  on  the  testimony  of 
the  "  primitive  community  "  for  the  truth  of  his  state- 
ment. That,  they  say,  is  what  we  must  understand 
when  the  apostle  writes  :  "  I  delivered  unto  you  first  of 
all  that  ivhich  I  also  received,  how  that  Christ  died  for 
our  sins  according  to  the  Scriptures,  and  that  he  was 
buried,  and  that  he  rose  again  the  third  day  according  to 
the  Scriptures,"  etc.  But  does  not  the  phrase  "  according 
to  the  Scriptures  "  point  rather  to  the  fact  that  there 
is  no  question  here  of  an  historical  reminiscence,  but  a 
belief  based  on  writings — namely,  Isaiah  liii,  and  possibly 
also  Jonah  ii,  1,  and  Ho  sea  vi,  2  ?3  The  story  of  Jonah 
itself  seems  to  have  been  originally  only  an  historical 
embodiment  of  the  myth  of  the  dead,  buried,  and  risen 
Saviour ;  in  fact,  Jesus  refers  to  the  prophet  Jonah  in 
this  sense  (Matt,  xii,  40). 

1  Die  evangel.  Oeschichte  und  der  Ursprung  des  Christentums,  1903, 
pp.  14,  418,  and  421. 

2  Der    Ursprung  und  die    Bedeutung  des   Apostolatus  in  der  christl. 
Kirche  der  ersten  drei  Jahrhunderte,  1887,  pp.  46  and  157. 

"  After  two  days  will  he  revive  us  :  in  the  third  day  he  will  raise  us 
up,  and  we  shall  live  in  his  sight  " — a  passage  relating  to  the  people  of 
Israel,  but  which  may  have  been  taken  by  Paul  to  refer  to  the  Messiah. 
Compare  Hausrath,  Jesus  u.  d.  neutestamentl.  Schriftsteller ,  i,  p.  103,  1908. 


78  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

And  even  if  the  apostle  was  assured  by  the  "  primitive 
community  "  of  the  truth  of  these  writings,  what  'does  it 
prove  as  regards  the  historicity  of  the  person  seen  in  such 
visions  ?  It  has  been  said  that  his  enumeration  of  the 
appearances  of  Jesus  has  a  documentary  and  "  catalogue- 
like  "  character.  But  where  do  we  find  in  this  "  catalogue  " 
the  women  to  whom,  according  to  Matthew  (xxviii,  9)  and 
Mark  (xvi,  9),  the  risen  Jesus  first  appeared?  And  how 
can  Paul  say  that  Jesus  appeared  to  the  whole  of  the 
twelve  apostles,  as  there  were  only  eleven  after  the  death 
of  Judas,  as  Luke  (xxiv,  33)  assumes  ?  And  how  does 
James  come  into  the  matter,  since,  according  to  the 
gospels,  Jesus  is  supposed  to  have  had  no  relations  with 
his  brother,  and  they  do  not  speak  of  any  such  appear- 
ance to  him?  If  some  of  the  more  exalted  religious 
folk  saw  visions  and  believed  they  perceived  the  bodily 
presence  of  the  "  servant  of  God,"  does  that  give  any 
proof  of  historicity  ? 

Naturally,  Weiss  says,  and  for  proof  he  refers  us  to 
the  vision  of  Paul,  of  which  he  says :  "  The  appearance 
must  have  shown  him  features  in  the  heavenly  figure  by 
which  he  recognised  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  or — as  I  should 
say  in  accordance  with  2  Cor.  v,  16 — recognised  once 
more"  (p.  108).  Yet  Acts  says  nothing  about  Paul 
perceiving  a  definite  form ;  it  speaks  only  of  a  flash  of 
light  which  fell  upon  the  apostle  from  above,  and  a  voice 
which  he  believed  he  heard.1  That  is  enough  to  ruin  the 
deduction  which  Weiss  makes  in  his  book  against  Wrede 
(p.  ix) — that  Paul  must  have  had  a  personal  knowledge 
of  Jesus.  We  should  have  just  as  much  right  to  regard 
the  pagan  gods,  Serapis  or  Asclepios,  which  were  believed 
to  appear  to  their  devotees  in  a  state  of  ecstasy,  as 
historical  personalities  because  the  devotees  regarded 
them  as  such.  Weiss  himself  assumes,  in  fact,  that  the 
transfiguration  of  Jesus  is  based  upon  a  statement  of 

1  ix,  5  ;  xxvi,  14. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  79 

Peter.  Jesus  is  supposed  to  have  appeared  to  his 
disciples  in  the  company  of  Moses  and  Elias.  But  how 
did  Peter  know  that  the  two  were  Moses  and  Elias  ? 
He  had  no  personal  knowledge  of  them. 

Von  Soden,  however,  believes  that  the  visions  mentioned 
in  1  Cor.  xv  show  that  the  figure  which  appeared  to  the 
disciples  must  have  had  quite  definite  and  recognisable 
features,  by  which  it  could  be  known  as  that  of  Jesus. 
But  Paul  does  not  say  that  Jesus  appeared  to  them  in 
bodily  form.  If  the  appearance  of  a  light  to  him  was 
enough  to  point  to  Jesus,  may  it  not  have  been  the  same 
with  the  others,  as  they  all  hourly  expected  the  coming 
of  the  Saviour  ?  Von  Soden  quotes  the  "  more  than 
500  brethren,"  who  must  all  have  seen  him  at  some 
time,  and  of  whom  many  still  lived  (1  Cor.  xv,  6).  It 
seems  that  he  has  never  heard  of  apparitions  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  which  have  been  seen  simultaneously  by 
many  of  the  faithful,  though  not  one  of  them  had 
the  least  personal  acquaintance  with  her.  He  also 
thinks  that  the  apparition  to  the  five  hundred  may  be 
brought  into  line  with  the  Pentecostal  occurrence  in 
Acts.  Unfortunately,  this  Pentecostal  phenomenon  was 
quite  certainly  not  an  historical  event ;  the  account  of 
the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  quite  understood 
from  Joel  ii,  28,  where  we  read :  "  And  it  shall  come  to 
pass  that  I  will  pour  out  my  spirit  upon  all  flesh ;  and 
your  sons  and  your  daughters  shall  prophesy,  your  old 
men  shall  dream  dreams,  and  your  young  men  shall  see 
visions.  And  also  upon  the  servants  and  upon  the  hand- 
maids in  those  days  will  I  pour  out  my  spirit.  And  I 
will  show  wonders  in  the  heavens  and  in  the  earth,"  etc. 
But  even  if  the  Pentecostal  phenomenon  had  ever  really 
taken  place,  it  would  not  help  the  opinion  of  Herr  von 
Soden,  because  it  would  only  follow  that  the  five  hundred 
saw  an  appearance  of  light,  not  a  definite  figure  of  Jesus. 
That  is  more  probable,  it  is  true,  than  that  a  definite 
form  was  seen  simultaneously  by  five  hundred  men.  For 


80  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

that  reason  we  might  regard  the  account  in  Acts  as 
earlier  than,  if  not  the  source  of,  the  narrative  of  Paul. 
That  would  mean  that  the  episode  of  the  five  hundred  is 
not  given  in  its  original  form  in  Paul,  and  we  should  then 
have  all  the  more  reason  to  regard  the  whole  reference  to 
the  appearances  of  the  risen  Jesus  in  the  fifteenth  chapter 
of  1  Corinthians  as  an  interpolation.  The  effort  to  put 
Paul's  vision  of  Christ  on  a  footing  with  those  of  the 
other  apostles  suggests  that  the  whole  thing  is  a  fictitious 
account  inserted  in  the  interest  of  the  apostle  of  the 
Gentiles,  or,  rather,  of  a  common  preaching  of  the  apostle 
of  the  Jews  and  Paul.1 

At  any  rate,  the  proof  that  Paul  owes  his  account 
of  the  apparition  of  the  risen  Christ  to  the  primitive 
community  does  not  help  at  all,  as  there  is  no  more 
guarantee  of  the  historical  reality  of  the  figure  seen  in 
a  vision  by  a  number  than  by  an  individual.  It  merely 
shows  the  failure  of  theologians  to  find  any  support  for 
their  belief  in  an  historical  Jesus  in  1  Cor.  xv. 

(c)  The  Account  of  the  Last  Supper. — Now  we  come 
to  1  Cor.  xi,  23.  Here  we  find  the  familiar  words :  "  For 
I  have  received  from  the  Lord  that  which  also  I  delivered 
unto  you,  that  the  Lord  Jesus  the  same  night  in  which 
he  was  betrayed  took  bread,"  etc.  This  passage,  J.  Weiss 
assures  us, is  "fatal"  to  the  whole  theory  of  Drews/ 'because 
in  it  we  not  only  have  the  words  of  the  Lord  quoted,  but 
a  perfectly  definite  event  in  the  life  of  Jesus  is  described 
in  all  its  details,  which  show  a  full  knowledge  of  the  story 
of  the  passion :  the  night,  the  betrayal,  and  the  supper 
before  the  arrest"  (p.  105).  Certainly  ;  unless  the  words 
in  question  were  not  written  by  Paul,  but  are  a  later 
interpolation  in  the  text.  I  was  not  the  first  to  suggest 
this.  The  theologians  Straatman2  and  Bruins8  rejected 
Paul's  account  of  the  Last  Supper,  and  concluded  that  it 


1  Cf.  W.  B.  Smith,  Ecce  Deus  (1911),  p.  155  /. 
a  Kritische  Studien,  1863,  pp.  38-63. 
8  Theol.  Tijdschr.,  xxvi,  pp.  397-403. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  81 

does  not  fit  the  context.  Steck1  describes  it  as  modified 
for  liturgical  use,  and  Volter2  regards  the  whole  eleventh 
chapter  of  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  as  an  inter- 
polation. Van  Manen  also  has  questioned  the  passage 
relating  to  the  Last  Supper  in  Paul,  on  account  of  its 
lack  of  connection  with  the  preceding  passage,  and  has 
said  that  it  gives  one  the  impression  of  being  a  collection 
of  sayings  from  various  sources  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
placing the  love-feasts  of  the  community,  on  account  of 
the  unseemly  things  that  happened,  and  replacing  them 
by  the  festival  of  the  Last  Supper.3  To  these  we  may 
add  Schlager,  the  translator  of  van  Manen's  Romerbrie/, 
who  has  raised  objections  to  the  passage;4  and  Smith  also 
has  recently  declared  the  passage  to  be  an  interpolation. 
It  is  not  therefore  foolish  to  speak  about  an  interpolation 
in  1  Cor.  xi,  23. 

Historical  theology  generally  regards  the  passage  in 
Corinthians  as  the  earliest  version  we  have  of  the  words 
used  at  the  institution  of  the  Supper.  But  a  particu- 
larly striking  reason  that  prevents  us  from  seeing  in 
Paul  the  oldest  tradition  of  the  words  at  the  Last 
Supper  is  their  obviously  liturgical  form  and  the  mean- 
ing which  the  apostle  puts  on  the  words.  It  is  very 
remarkable  that  Paul  and  Luke  alone  represent  the 
Lord's  Supper  as  instituted  by  Jesus  in  "memory"  of 
him ;  Mark  and  Matthew  know  nothing  of  this.  They 
have  a  much  simpler  test  than  the  other  two.  Hence, 
Jiilicher,  against  Weizsacker  and  Harnack,  rightly  doubts 
whether  the  Supper  was  "  founded  "  by  Jesus.5  "  He  did 
not  institute  or  found  anything  ;  that  remained  for  the  time 
when  he  came  again  into  his  father's  kingdom.  He  made 
no  provision  for  his  memory ;  having  spoken  as  he  did  in 
Matthew  (xxvi,  29),  he  had  no  idea  of  so  long  a  period 

1  Galaterbrief.  p.  172. 

2  Theol.  Tijdschr.,  xxiii,  p.  322. 

3  Whittaker,  work  quoted,  p.  168. 

4  Theol.  Tijdschr.,  1889,  Heft.  I,  p.  41. 

5  Theol.  Abhandlungen  filr  C.  Weizsacker,  1892,  p.  232. 

G 


82  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

of  future  time"  (p.  244).  Paul,  therefore,  according  to 
Jiilicher,  indicates  a  later  stage  of  the  tradition  in  regard 
to  the  first  Eucharist  than  Mark  and  Matthew,  and  the 
earliest  tradition  does  not  make  Jesus  show  the  least  sign 
that  he  wishes  these  material  actions  to  be  performed 
in  future  by  his  followers  (p.  238).  If  this  is  so,  the 
words  of  the  institution  of  the  Supper  were  interpolated 
subsequently  in  the  text  of  Paul,  as  the  liturgical  use  of 
them  in  the  Pauline  sense  became  established  in  the 
Church,  in  order  to  support  them  with  the  authority  of 
the  apostle,  and  the  words,  "  For  I  have  received  from 
the  Lord,"  serve  to  give  further  proof  of  their  authentic 
character ;  or  else  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
was  not  written  by  the  apostle  Paul,  as,  in  spite  of 
Jiilicher,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  Paul  could  at 
so  early  a  stage  give  a  version  of  the  Lord's  Supper 
that  differed  so  much  from  that  of  the  "  primitive  com- 
munity." 

Or  may  we  believe  that  Paul  had  a  more  reliable 
account  of  the  words  of  Jesus  than  the  evangelists, 
and  has  used  it  in  1  Cor.  xi,  23?  If  so,  how  came 
Matthew  and  Mark  to  change  the  original  words  of 
institution,  and  how  could  this  alteration  be  preserved 
in  their  text  and  received  by  the  Church?  Even  in 
their  text  the  words  of  institution  do  not  give  an 
impression  of  history.  Their  mystic  sense  is  in 
flagrant  contradiction  to  what  theologians  so  appre- 
ciatively call  the  "  simplicity  "  and  "  straightforward- 
ness "  of  the  words  of  Jesus.  "  How  were  the  disciples 
to  understand  that  they  eat  the  body  of  Christ  who  was 
about  to  be  put  to  death,  and  drank  his  blood,  though 
not  the  blood  present  in  his  body,  but  that  about  to  be 
shed  soon  ?  "  asks  the  theologian  A.  Eichhorn  in  his 
work  Das  Abendmahl  (1898),  and  he  declares  that  the 
whole  story  of  the  institution  of  the  supper,  as  we  have 
it  in  the  Synoptics  and  Paul,  is  an  historical  impossibility. 
"  All  the  difficulties  disappear  if  we  adopt  the  later  point 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  83 

of  view  of  the  community."1  The  mysticism  of  the 
festive  supper  cannot  have  been  instituted  by  Jesus,  but 
is  based  on  the  cult  of  the  Christian  community,  and  was 
subsequently  put  in  the  mouth  of  its  supposed  founder.2 

In  that  case  1  Cor.  xi,  23,  etc.,  is  of  no  value  as  a 
proof  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus. 

Let  us  examine  the  passage  more  closely.  "  The  same 
night  in  which  he  was  betrayed  " — was  he  betrayed  ? 
The  thing  is  historically  so  improbable,  the  whole  story 
of  the  betrayal  is  so  absurd  historically  and  psycholo- 
gically, that  only  a  few  thoughtless  Bible-readers  can 
accept  it  with  complacency.  Imagine  the  ideal  man 
Jesus  knowing  that  one  of  his  disciples  is  about  to  betray 
him  and  thus  forfeit  his  eternal  salvation,  yet  doing 
nothing  to  restrain  the  miserable  man,  but  rather  con- 
firming him  in  it !  Imagine  a  Judas  demanding  money 
from  the  high-priest  for  the  betrayal  of  a  man  who  walks 
the  streets  of  Jerusalem  daily,  and  whose  sojourn  at 
night  could  assuredly  be  discovered  without  any  treachery  ! 
"  For  Judas  to  have  betrayed  Jesus,"  Kautsky  says,  "is 
much  the  same  as  if  the  Berlin  police  were  to  pay  a  spy 
to  point  out  to  them  the  man  named  Bebel."3  More- 
over, the  Greek  word  paradidonai  does  not  mean 
"betray"  at  all,  but  "give  up,"  and  is  simply  taken 
from  Isaiah  liii,  12,  where  it  is  said  that  the  servant  of 
God  "gave  himself  unto  death."  The  whole  story  of 
the  betrayal  is  a  late  invention  founded  on  that  passage 
in  the  prophet,  and  Judas  is  not  an  historical  personality, 
but,  as  Eobertson  believes,  a  representative  of  the  Jewish 
people,  hated  by  the  Christians,  who  were  believed  to 
have  caused  the  death  of  the  Saviour.  Further,  the 
"  night,"  in  which  the  betrayal  is  supposed  to  have  taken 
place,  has  no  historical  background.  It  merely  serves  to 

1  Work   quoted,   p.    19.     See    also    A.   Schweitzer,    Von   Reimarus   zu 
Wrede  (1906),  p.  152. 

2  See  Feigel,  Der  Einfluss  des  Weissagungsbeweises  und  anderer  Motive 
auf  die  Leidensgeschichte  (1910),  p.  50. 

3  Der  Ursprung  des  Christentums  (1910),  p.  388. 


84  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

set  in  contrast  the  luminous  figure  of  Jesus  and  the  dark 
work  of  his  betrayer.1  Hence  Paul  cannot  have  known 
anything  of  a  nocturnal  betrayal  on  the  part  of  Judas, 
and  one  more  "  proof"  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus  breaks 
down. 

Theologians  humorously  comment  on  the  fact  that  all 
passages  are  rejected  as  interpolations  which  do  not 
square  with  the  theory  of  those  who  deny  the  historicity 
of  Christ,  and  say  that  this  is  a  wilful  procedure.  It  is, 
however,  quite  certain  that  they  themselves  would  at 
once  abandon  the  passages,  and  find  as  many  arguments 
against  their  genuineness  as  they  now  do  in  favour  of  it, 
if  this  suited  their  general  system. 

This  much  is  certain:  If  1  Cor.  xi,  23,  etc.,  is  not  an 
interpolation  in  the  text,  there  are  no  interpolations  at  all 
in  the  New  Testament.  We  can  understand  how  difficult 
it  is  for  theologians  to  give  up  the  passage  on  account  of 
the  very  thin  thread  which  unequivocally  connects  the 
teaching  of  Paul  with  the  gospels,  but  we  cannot  think 
much  of  their  perspicacity  when  they  find  no  fault  with 
the  passage.  In  earlier  verses  (17-22)  of  the  chapter  Paul 
is  not  dealing  with  the  so-called  last  supper,  but  with  the 
love-feast,  or  agape,  which  the  Christians  celebrated  in 
common.  From  the  twenty-third  verse  on  the  apostle 
speaks  suddenly  of  the  supper,  and  then  in  verses  23  and 
24  returns  to  the  love-feast. 

(d)  The  '"Brothers"  of  the  Lord. — We  have  now  to 
deal  with  "  the  brothers  of  the  Lord  "  (1  Cor.  ix,  5  and 
Gal.  i,  19).  Here  the  theologians  believe  that  they  play 
their  trump.  If  Jesus  had  had  corporal  brothers,  he 
must  certainly  have  been  an  historical  individual,  and  it 
is  untrue  that  Paul  knew  nothing  of  any  individual  human 
feature  of  Jesus.  "  Have  we  not,"  says  1  Cor.  ix,  5, 
"  power  to  lead  about  a  sister,  a  wife,  as  well  as  other 
apostles,  and  as  the  brethren  of  the  Lord,  and  Cephas  ?  " 

1  See  Feigcl,  work  quoted,  pp.  47  and  114. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  85 

If  it  could  only  be  proved  that  Paul  had  in  his  mind 
corporal  brothers  of  Jesus  and  not  merely  "  brothers"  in 
the  sect !  Weinel  contests  this  on.  the  ground  that  it  is 
unlikely  that  a  sect  would  call  itself  "  brothers  "  of  the 
God  of  the  cult.  Has  he  never  heard  of  brothers  of 
St.  Vincent,  brothers  of  Joseph,  sisters  of  Mary,  etc. ; 
that  is  to  say,  religious  brotherhoods  whose  members  call 
themselves  after  the  saint  whose  service  they  have 
entered,  and  who  correspond  to  the  heroes  of  the  cult 
in  the  ancient  mysteries  ?  "  But  in  the  case  of  Paul," 
he  replies,  "  we  can  prove  that  he  does  not  give  that 
name  to  Christians ;  he  calls  them  '  brethren  '  or  '  brethren 
in  Christ'"  (p.  109). 

Now,  in  Romans  (viii,  44)  those  who  are  impelled  by 
the  spirit  of  God  are  called  "  sons  of  God."  Christ, 
as  "  son  of  God  "  in  a  special  sense,  is  called  "  the  first- 
born among  many  brethren  "  (29),  and  his  followers  are 
called  "  heirs  of  God"  and  "  co-heirs  with  Christ"  (17), 
from  which  it  follows  that  they  must  at  the  same 
time  be  "  brothers  of  Christ."  That  is,  says  Weinel,  a 
figure,  not  a  Christian  name.  But  why  should  not  the 
followers  of  Jesus  receive  a  figurative  name  from  Paul, 
when  the  "  brotherhood  "  of  the  sect  is  only  figurative,  its 
heads  are  figuratively  called  "  fathers,"  and  the  members 
only  figuratively  their  sons?  In  Matthew  (xxviii,  10) 
Jesus  himself  calls  his  followers  his  "  brothers,"  and  in 
Mark  (in,  35)  he  says :  "  Whoever  shall  do  the  will  of 
God,  the  same  is  my  brother  and  my  sister  and  mother." 
In  John  (xx,  17)  he  so  names  the  disciples  because  they 
have  as  "  father  "  the  same  God  as  he.  In  fact,  in  the 
second  century  Justin,  in  his  dialogue  with  the  Jew 
Trypho,  speaks  of  the  apostles  as  "  brothers  of  Jesus  "  in 
the  highest  sense  (p.  106).  Why,  then,  should  not  Paul 
have  spoken  of  the  followers  of  Jesus  as  his  "  brothers  "  ? 
Because  he  usually  calls  them  "  brothers  in  Christ "  ? 
But  just  as,  on  the  one  hand,  the  apostle  expresses  the 
intimate  connection  with  Christ  by  the  continence  of  the 


86 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 


faithful  (Gal.  iii,  26-29),  and  also  by  absorption  in  the 
life-atmosphere  of  the  Supreme,  so  he  also  speaks,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  Christ  living  in  the  faithful  and  bringing 
them  into  closer  relationship,  or  making  brothers  of  them. 
If  in  one  place  he  does  not  confine  himself  to  one  mode 
of  expression,  why  should  he  do  so  in  another  ?  Those 
who  think  otherwise  must  have  been  convinced  before- 
hand that  Jesus  is  an  historical  individual  in  Paul, 
and  that  his  brothers  can  only  be  brothers  in  the  flesh. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  partisans  of  the  historicity  of 
Jesus  merely  reject  the  figurative  interpretation  of  the 
expression  "  brothers"  because  they  assume  that  historicity 
in  advance. 

According  to  Weinel,  it  follows  that  a  special  group  of 
men  must  be  named  here,  because  in  1  Cor.  ix  there  is 
question  of  the  prerogatives  of  the  apostles,  and  the 
brothers  of  the  Lord  are  associated  with  them  as  apostolic 
men  (p.  109).  But  was  it  really  a  "prerogative"  of  the 
apostles  to  be  married  ?  Were  the  other  members  of  the 
sect  besides  the  apostles  and  the  corporal  brothers  of 
Jesus  forbidden  to  take  a  wife  ?  Might  not  Paul  just  as 
well  have  wished  to  say  that  in  all  things  he  felt  himself 
in  the  same  position  as  the  other  members  of  the  com- 
munity, and  therefore  his  apostolic  dignity  could  not  be 
contested  once  he  had  won  a  right  to  that  name  by  his 
missionary  work?  No,  says  J.  Weiss;  the  "brothers  of 
the  Lord  "  cannot  be  ordinary  Christians.  "  Why  were 
they  named  between  the  apostles  and  Cephas,  and  why 
especially  were  the  apostles  not  so  called?  "  (p.  106).  On 
the  other  hand,  why  is  Cephas  mentioned  after  the 
"brothers  of  the  Lord,"  seeing  that  he  was  one  of  the 
apostles  ?  And  were  the  Corinthians  so  familiar  with  the 
brothers  of  Jesus  that  Paul  could  appeal  to  them  and 
their  conjugal  relations?  Are  we  not  rather  to  under- 
stand by  the  "  brothers  of  the  Lord,"  if  they  do  really 
mean  a  special  group  of  men  distinct  from  the  twelve 
apostles,  the  seventy  disciples  whom  Jesus  is  said  (Luke  x 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  87 

to  have  sent  on  missionary  journeys  ?  We  might  point 
to  the  fact  that  James,  the  "brother  of  the  Lord,"  is 
distinct  from  the  twelve  apostles  according  to  the  apostolic 
constitutions,  and  is  counted  by  Eusebius1  among  the 
seventy — a  view  which  Hegesippus  also  seems  to  hold  in 
Eusebius.2  There  is  no  answer  to  these  questions.  At 
the  best  the  passage  remains  obscure. 

Other  students,  who  do  not  need  the  "brothers  of 
Jesus  "  in  support  of  their  belief  in  an  historical  Jesus, 
have  dropped  1  Cor.  ix,  5  altogether,  and  declared  that  it 
is  meaningless  or  is  an  interpolation.  Schlager,  for 
instance,  considers  it  spurious  because,  in  his  research, 
all  passages  in  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  with 
one  single  exception  (iv,  4),  which  speak  of  Christ  as  "  the 
Lord  "  have  proved  to  be  interpolations.  "  Missionary 
journeys  of  the  brothers  of  Jesus,"  he  says,  "  are  not 
known  to  us  from  any  other  source,  and  are  in  themselves 
improbable."  That  is  undoubtedly  correct.  Imagine 
Simon,  Jude,  or  Joseph  (Joses)  going  out  with  the 
announcement  that  their  brother  Jesus  was  the  long- 
expected  Messiah,  and  would  soon  come  again  in  the 
clouds  of  heaven  !  Steck  also  is  surprised  to  hear  of  mis- 
sionary journeys  on  the  part  of  the  brothers  of  the  Lord, 
"  who,  as  patriotic  Jews,  are  not  easy  to  imagine  away 
from  Palestine,"  and  he  is  reminded  of  Gal.  ii,  12,  where 
it  is  merely  said  that  Peter  went  to  Antioch,  without  any 
further  historical  explanations.3  And  Bruno  Bauer 
exclaims :  "  What  an  idea  that  Peter  and  the  twelve 
apostles  should  be  known  to  the  Corinthians  as  travelling 
about !  It  was  not  until  the  second  century  that  they 
were  known  as  such  to  everybody.  And  how  incongruous 
the  question  is  whether  they  have  not  the  same  right  to 
marry  as  the  apostles,  and  that  Barnabas  should  be 
brought  into  closest  intimacy  with  the  person  of  Paul 
and  represented  to  the  Corinthians  as  co-ordinate  with 

1  Comment.  Is.  xvii,  5  ;  Eccl.  Hist.,  I,  12  ;  II,  1 ;  VII,  19. 

2  Eccl.  Hist.,  II,  25.  8  Galaterbrief,  p.  272. 


88  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

Paul !  As  if  he  had  gone  to  Corinth  with  the  apostle  of 
the  Gentiles !"  (p.  52). 

The  partisans  of  an  historical  Jesus  naturally  connect 
his  "  brothers  "  with  Mark  vi,  3,  where  James,  Joses, 
Juda,  and  Simon  are  mentioned  as  sons  of  Mary  and 
brothers  of  Jesus.  But  Steudel  has  rightly  called  our 
attention  to  Mark  xv,  40,  where  the  same  Mary,  who  is 
supposed  to  be  the  mother  of  James  and  Joses,  is  not 
represented  as  the  mother  of  Jesus,  and,  consequently, 
James  and  Joses  cannot  be  regarded  as  his  brothers.  We 
have  evidently  to  deal  with  two  independent  accounts,  and 
there  can  be  no  hesitation  in  saying  which  was  the 
earlier  ;  and,  therefore,  the  belief  that  Jesus  had  brothers 
in  the  flesh  is  seen  to  be  a  secondary  and  legendary 
growth.1 

Here  we  also  have  the  answer  to  the  question  about  the 
brotherhood  of  James  (Gal.  i,  19).  I  have  endeavoured 
to  show  that  this  also  is  merely  brotherhood  in  the  sect, 
and  that  the  position  of  honour  which  James  is  supposed 
to  have  had  in  the  community,  according  to  Acts  xv,  13 
and  Gal.  i,  19  and  ii,  9  and  12,  was  due  to  his  personal 
qualities.  "  It  was  reserved  for  Drews,"  says  von  Soden, 
"  to  explain  the  phrase  '  brothers  of  the  Lord '  in  the 
sense  that  James  was  the  best  Christian,  the  most  like  to 
the  Lord"  (p.  31).  The  learned  writer  evidently  forgets 
that  Origen  had  said  long  ago  that  James  was  called  the 
brother  of  the  Lord,  not  so  much  on  account  of  blood- 
relationship  with  Jesus,  or  because  he  had  grown  up  with 
him,  as  because  he  was  faithful  and  virtuous.2  It  is  well 
known  what  an  important  part  James  played  in  the 
second  century  in  the  Jewish-Christian  communities,  as 
we  see  especially  in  Hegesippus  (in  Eusebius's  Ecclesias- 
tical History,  II,  25),  precisely  on  account  of  his  piety. 
He  was  at  the  same  time  the  patron  of  the  Ebionitic 


1  Steudel,  Im  Kampf  urn  die  Christusmythe,  pp.  95  and  114. 

2  Contra  Celsum,  I,  47. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  89 

party,  which  formed  a  garland  of  legends  about  his 
head.  Is  it  so  improbable  that  the  pious  brother  in  the 
sect  was  early  elevated  to  the  position  of  "  brother  of 
the  Lord "  in  a  special  sense,  and  that  the  name — 
originally  only  a  title  of  honour — was  used  by  Paul  in 
that  sense  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  impossible  that  "  the 
brother  of  the  Lord  "  is  a  later  interpolation  in  Gal.  i,  19, 
whether  because  a  particular  group  of  Christians  wished 
to  bring  the  venerated  saint  as  close  as  possible  to 
Jesus  by  making  him  a  brother  in  the  flesh,  or,  as 
Schlager  (p.  46)  thinks,  in  order  to  distinguish  more 
clearly  the  various  individuals  who  were  named  James. 
As  Hegesippus  says :  "  The  community  distinguished 
the  apostle  James,  the  brother  of  the  Lord,  by  the  name 
of  '  the  just,'  from  the  time  of  Christ  to  our  own  days, 
as  there  were  several  with  the  name  James."1  It 
was  quite  natural,  when  they  began  to  regard  Jesus 
generally  as  a  human  being,  to  give  him  human 
features,  and  convert  the  inner  spiritual  relationship 
to  him  of  various  distinguished  brethren  into  a  bodily 
relationship  ;  at  times  this  might  be  done  in  order  to 
vindicate  the  complete  reality  of  the  incarnation  of  Christ 
against  the  growing  Gnostic  spiritualism.  Lastly,  can 
it  be  a  mere  coincidence  that  the  three  ''pillars"  at 
Jerusalem  agree  in  name  with  the  three  privileged 
disciples  of  the  Lord  who  are  present  with  him  at  the 
raising  of  the  daughter  of  Jairus  (Mark  v,  57;  Luke  vii, 
51),  follow  him  to  the  mountain  of  transfiguration  (Mark 
ix,  2 ;  Luke  ix,  28),  and  are  permitted  to  be  the  witnesses 
of  his  agony  in  face  of  approaching  death  in  Geth- 
semane?  Was  not  the  "  pillar  "  apostle  James  originally 
identical  with  James  the  son  of  Zebedee  and  brother  of 
John,  and  only  afterwards  converted  into  the  "  brother 
of  Jesus  "  ? 

1  Eusebius,  Eccl.  Hist.,  as  above. 


90  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  it  is  mere  "  subjective  arbitrari- 
ness "  to  find  here  another  interpolation  in  Paul.  No 
theologian  doubts  that  the  Pauline  Epistles  have  been 
greatly  interpolated.  Which  passages  have  been  inserted 
later  can  be  decided  only  by  the  general  theory  which  one 
gathers  from  the  text.  And  that  the  theory  of  the  theo- 
logians is  the  only  correct  one,  that  the  Jesus  of  the  Pauline 
Epistles  was  an  historical  individual,  has  not  yet  been 
proved  by  anything  we  have  found  in  the  Epistles. 
What  is  there  to  prevent  us,  then,  from  interpreting  in 
our  own  sense,  or  excluding,  so  singular  and  isolated  an 
expression  as  "  the  brother  of  the  Lord  "  in  Galatians  ? 

As  is  well  known,  much  scandal  was  early  occasioned 
in  Essenian-Ebionitic  circles  by  the  statement  that  Mary 
was  married  to  Joseph  and  had  several  children,  and  it 
was  said  that  James  was  not  a  real  brother  of  Jesus. 
Some  regarded  him  as  a  step-brother — a  son  of  Joseph 
by  an  earlier  wife ;  others  thought  the  "  brothers  of  the 
Lord "  were  foster-brothers  or  cousins  of  Jesus,  or 
attempted  to  explain  them  away  as  equal  to  the  apostles. 
This  led  to  an  identification  of  James  the  Just,  the 
"  brother  of  the  Lord,"  with  James  the  son  of  Alphaeus, 
as  he  is  briefly  called  in  the  Synoptics  and  in  Acts,1  as  we 
find  in  Jerome,  for  instance ;  others  identified  him  with 
James  the  son  of  Zebedee,  the  brother  of  John ;  and  these 
views  have  found  representatives  among  recent  theolo- 
gians. In  the  Synoptics  the  "  brothers  "  have  apparently 
a  purely  symbolical  significance.  They  serve  the  purpose 
of  emphasising  the  distinction  between  spiritual  and 
bodily  relationship,  and  illustrating  the  truth  that 
belonging  to  Jesus  does  not  depend  on  external  cir- 
cumstances and  the  accident  of  birth,  but  simply  on 
faith.2  Even  in  John  (vii,  5)  the  brothers,  who  do  not 
believe  in  him,  are  opposed  to  the  twelve  and  their 


1  Matt,  x,  3  ;  Mark  iii,  18  ;  Luke  vi,  15  ;  Acts  i,  13. 

2  Matt,  xii,  4G;  Mark  iii,  31  :  Luke  viii,  19. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  91 

unhesitating  recognition  of  his  Messiahship  (vi,  69), 
which  also  recalls  the  antithesis  of  the  Jews,  who,  in 
spite  of  their  racial  connection,  would  hear  nothing  of 
Jesus  and  his  intimate  followers.  It  is  only  in  the  later 
Acts  of  the  Apostles  (i,  14)  that  the  brothers  of  Jesus 
appear  as  followers  of  him,  although  not  a  word  is  said 
in  explanation  of  their  sudden  conversion.  This  does  not 
dispose  us  to  place  very  much  confidence  in  the  references 
of  the  New  Testament  to  the  brothers  of  Jesus,  and  when 
Weinel  says  in  regard  to  James,  "It  is  all  so  simple, 
intelligible,  and  straightforward  that  it  needs  a  good  deal 
of  art  to  evade  the  testimony  of  the  connection  of  Gal.  i 
and  1  Cor.  ix  and  the  terminology"  (p.  116),  I  can  only 
reply  that,  in  spite  of  all  my  efforts  to  understand  James 
from  the  writings  of  theologians,  I  have  never  been  able  to 
get  at  the  real  nature  of  the  man.  And  as  I  find  that 
others  have  had  the  same  experience,  it  does  not  seem  to 
be  due  to  any  defect  on  my  part  that  the  James-problem 
seems  to  me  hopeless;  every  attempt  to  throw  light  on  the 
obscure  problem  fails.1  To  base  on  an  isolated  passage 
such  as  the  reference  to  "  the  brothers  of  the  Lord  "  in 
Paul  a  belief  in  the  historical  character  of  Jesus  seems 
to  me  too  "simple";  I  am  not  modest  enough  to  do 
it.  I  can  only  see  in  the  "  brothers  of  Jesus,"  as 
far  as  they  are  supposed  to  have  been  brothers  in  the 
flesh,  and  in  his  parents,  the  carpenter  Joseph  and  Mary, 
mythical  figures ;  in  the  case  of  Mary  especially,  because 
the  name  is  customary  among  the  saviour-gods  of  ancient 
times,  and  the  other  supposed  actions  of  the  Biblical  Mary 
agree  with  those  of  the  mothers  (or  sisters)  of  those 
deities.2 

(e)  The  "Words  of  the  Lord."— We  now  come  to 
what  are  called  the  "  Words  of  the  Lord,"  the  introduc- 
tion of  which  into  the  Pauline  Epistles  is  supposed  to 


1  See  also  Steudel,  Wir  Gelehrten  vom  Fach,  p.  69. 

2  See  TJie  Christ-Myth  and  Robertson's  Christianity  and  Mythology. 


92  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

prove  that  the  apostle  had  some  knowledge  of  Jesus. 
First  there  is  1  Cor.  vii,  10  :  "  And  unto  the  married  I 
command,  yet  not  I,  but  the  Lord,  Let  not  the  wife 
depart  from  her  husband :  but  and  if  she  depart,  let  her 
remain  unmarried,  or  be  reconciled  to  her  husband ;  and 
let  not  the  husband  put  away  his  wife."  The  latter  part 
of  this  precept  agrees  in  substance  (not  verbally)  with 
Matthew  v,  32,  and  xix,  9,  and  other  parallel  passages. 
But  does  that  mean  that  it  is  a  quotation  of  a  saying 
of  the  historical  Jesus  ?  The  prohibition  to  part  with  a 
wife  is  sound  Babbinism.  In  the  Talmud  we  read  :  "  A 
wife  must  not  be  dismissed  except  for  adultery " 
(Gittin,  90)  ;  "  The  altar  itself  sheds  tears  over  the  man 
who  sends  away  his  wife  "  (Pessach,  113)  ;  "  The  man 
who  separates  from  his  wife  is  hateful  to  God  "  (Gittin, 
90  b).  We  even  read  in  the  prophet  Malachi :  "  Let 
none  deal  treacherously  against  the  wife  of  his  youth. 
For  the  Lord,  the  God  of  Israel,  saith  that  he  hateth 
putting  away"  (ii,  15).  How,  if  the  apostle  had  this 
passage  in  mind  in  his  prohibition  of  divorce,  and  by  the 
"  Lord  "  in  whose  name  he  speaks,  are  we  to  understand 
"  the  God  of  Israel "  ?  Does  not  Paul  regard  the  Old 
Testament  as  the  word  of  revelation  of  the  "Lord," 
whose  pointing  to  Christ  had  hitherto  been  hidden,  but 
is  now  revealed  in  the  eyes  of  the  faithful?1  And  when 
the  apostle  appeals  in  1  Cor.  ix,  14,  to  a  command  of  the 
"  Lord "  for  the  right  of  the  apostles  to  live  by  the 
gospel,  we  may  be  disposed  to  recall  Matthew  x,  10  : 
"  The  workman  is  worthy  of  his  meat  ";  but  we  should 
have  just  as  much  right  to  think  of  Deut.  xviii,  1,  where 
it  is  written :  "  The  priests  the  Levites,  and  all  the  tribe 
of  Levi,  shall  have  no  part  nor  inheritance  with  Israel : 
they  shall  eat  the  offerings  of  the  Lord  made  by  fire,  and 
his  inheritance,"  and  xxv,  4 :  "  Thou  shalt  not  muzzle 
the  ox  when  he  treadeth  out  the  corn."  Paul  himself 

1  2  Cor.  iii,  14. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  93 

sometimes  (1  Cor.  ix,  9)  appeals  to  this  word  of  the  law. 
In  order,  therefore,  to  explain  Paul's  "  Words  of  the 
Lord  "  we  have  no  need  to  suppose,  as  I  did  previously, 
that  they  are  rules  of  the  community,  which  are  clothed 
with  an  authoritative  significance  by  ascribing  them  to 
the  patron  of  the  religious  body ;  it  is  enough  to  appeal 
to  the  Old  Testament. 

If,  however,  we  are  to  understand  by  the  "Lord"  in 
Paul,  not  the  "  God  of  Israel,"  but  Jesus,  there  is  still  no 
security  whatever  that  the  words  in  question  are  not 
interpolations.  "  References  to  the  words  and  deeds  of 
the  life  of  the  historical  Jesus  are,"  says  Schlager,  "  so 
infrequent  in  the  Pauline  writings  that,  whenever  they 
occur,  we  have  to  ask  ourselves  whether  it  is  not  the 
reflectiveness  of  a  later  period,  which  was  accustomed  to 
rely  on  the  evangelical  literature,  that  introduced  the 
authority  of  Jesus  into  the  text"  (p.  36).  What  is  to 
prevent  us  from  supposing  that  the  reverse  often  took 
place  also,  and  that  words  and  phrases  from  the  Pauline 
Epistles  were  afterwards  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  Jesus 
of  the  gospels  ? 

Von  Soden,  also,  finds  it  remarkable  that  the  "  Words  of 
the  Lord  "  in  Paul  are  not  found,  or  not  found  in  the  same 
form,  in  the  gospels.  That  is  especially  true  of  1  Thessa- 
lonians  iv,  15 — an  Epistle  which  is  usually  regarded  as 
genuine  by  historical  theologians  :  "  For  this  we  say  unto 
you  by  the  word  of  the  Lord,  that  we  which  are  alive 
and  remain  unto  the  coming  of  the  Lord  shall  not  prevent 
them  which  are  asleep.  For  the  Lord  himself  shall 
descend  from  heaven  with  a  shout,  with  the  voice  of  the 
archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of  God ;  and  the  dead  in 
Christ  shall  rise  first :  then  we  which  are  alive  and 
remain  shall  be  caught  up  together  with  them  in  the 
clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air ;  and  so  shall  we  ever 
be  with  the  Lord."  The  passage  recalls  Mark  xiii,  26, 
especially  in  view  of  the  subsequent  warning  to  watch, 
but  differs  from  it  in  important  points.  Here  we  have 


94  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

an  excellent  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  "  Words  of 
the  Lord"  came  into  existence.  For  some  of  the  most 
distinguished  critical  representatives  of  historical  theology 
(Holtzmann,  for  instance)  are  convinced  that  the  thir- 
teenth chapter  of  Mark  is  in  the  main  an  apocalyptic 
leaflet  of  the  time  of  the  Jewish  War,  shortly  before  the 
year  70  ;  more  probably,  as  Graetz  believes  and  Lublinski 
has  recently  shown,  a  leaflet  by  a  Palestinian  Christian 
of  the  time  of  Bar-Kochba.1  These  "Words  of  the 
Lord "  are  merely  the  sayings  of  individuals  who  felt 
the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  believed  that  their 
utterances  during  the  ecstatic  condition  came  directly 
from  "  the  Lord  ";  and  sometimes,  as  in  the  case  we  are 
discussing,  they  were  introduced  afterwards  into  the  New 
Testament.2 

Such  being  the  state  of  things,  it  is  utterly  futile  to 
claim  that,  because  certain  words  and  phrases  of  the 
Pauline  Epistles  harmonise  with  others  in  the  gospels, 
Paul  is  repeating  the  words  of  the  historical  Jesus.  The 
late  H.  Holtzmann,  in  his  attempt  to  refute  my  state- 
ment in  the  Christ  Myth  that  Paul  seemed  not  to  be 
acquainted  with  any  sayings  of  Jesus,  hastily  put  together 
a  number  of  such  words  from  the  apostle's  Epistles,  and 
no  doubt  others  will  be  found  now  that  attention  has 
been  drawn  to  them.  There  is,  however,  as  I  said,  no 
disproof  whatever  in  this,  for  the  simple  reason  that  most 
of  these  words  are  of  such  a  nature  that  we  cannot  say 
whether  the  gospels  took  them  from  the  Pauline  Epistles, 
or  the  Epistles  owe  them  to  the  gospels.  On  the  one 
hand,  even  according  to  theologians,  the  gospels  are 
repeatedly  found  to  contain  Pauline  ideas ;  on  the  other, 
one  can  very  easily  see  how  it  would  be  to  the  interest  of 
the  Church  to  discover  the  ideas  and  words  of  Jesus  in 


1  Wcrnle,  Die  Quellen  des  Lebens  Jesu,  1905,  p.  58 ;  Das  werdende 
Dorjma  vom  Leben  Jesu,  1910,  pp.  76  and  101. 

a  Steudcl,  Wir  Oelehrten  vom  Fach,  p.  37  ;  Im  Kampf  urn  die  Christus- 
mythe,  p.  56. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  95 

Paul,  in  order  to  bridge  over  the  remarkable  gulf  between 
the  two.  Moreover,  a  great  part  of  these  particular  words 
of  Jesus,  especially  of  the  more  important,  have  nothing 
distinctive  about  them  to  show  that  they  were  uttered  by 
Jesus  only. 

This  is  true,  in  the  first  place,  of  Romans  ii,  1 : 
"  Wherein  thou  judgest  another,  thou  condemnest 
thyself"  (cf.  also  xiv,  4).  The  saying  is  supposed  to 
suggest  Matthew  vii,  1  :  "  Judge  not  that  ye  be  not 
judged."  But  the  resemblance  is  so  slight  and  the 
saying  so  commonplace  that  Paul  himself  may  have 
been  the  author  of  it.  It  is  written  in  the  Talmud 
(Pirke  Aboth,  i,  6):  "  Judge  only  good  of  thy  neigh- 
bours," and  (Sanhedrim,  100):  "As  a  man  measures, 
with  the  same  standard  shall  he  be  measured."  It  is  the 
same  with  Romans  ii,  19.  When  the  apostle  exclaims  to 
the  law-proud  Jew,  "  Thou  art  confident  that  thou 
thyself  art  a  guide  of  the  blind,"  there  is  no  necessary 
connection  with  Matthew  xv,  14,  and  xxiii,  16  and  24, 
where  Jesus  pronounces  his  woes  over  the  Pharisees,  as 
the  figure  is  too  pertinent  and  familiar  to  prove  anything. 
In  Romans  ix,  33,  Paul  describes  his  gospel  of  justification 
by  faith  as  "a  stumbling-block  and  rock  of  offence." 
This  at  once  sends  theologians  to  Matthew  xxi,  42,  where 
it  is  written :  "  The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected, 
the  same  is  become  the  head  of  the  corner."  Whereas 
in  this  case  Jesus  himself  appeals  to  the  Scriptures,  and 
there  is  no  reason  whatever  why  Paul  also,  when  he 
reproduced  the  words,  should  not  have  in  mind  Is.  viii,  14, 
and  xxviii,  16.  In  Romans  xii,  14,  we  find  :  "  Bless  them 
which  persecute  you;  bless,  and  curse  not."  That,  of 
course,  must  be  based  on  the  words  of  Jesus  in  Matthew 
v,  44 :  "  Love  your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you, 
do  good  to  them  that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  which 
despitefully  use  you  and  persecute  you."  It  is,  however, 
written  in  Psalm  cix,  28  :  "  Let  them  curse,  but  bless 
thou  " ;  and  the  Talmud  says :  "  It  is  better  to  be  wronged 


96  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

by  others  than  to  wrong  "  (Sanhedrim,  48)  ;  "Be  rather 
with  the  persecuted  than  the  persecutors"  (Balamezia^S)  ; 
and  the  oldest  manuscripts  of  the  gospels  (Sinaiticus  and 
Vaticanus)  do  not  contain  the  words  of  Jesus  at  all.  In 
the  same  way  we  dispose  of  Romans  xii,  21  :  "  Be  not 
overcome  of  evil,  but  overcome  evil  with  good  "  (cf.  also 
Wisdom,  vii,  30). 

In  Romans  xiii,  7,  we  read :  "  Render  therefore  to  all 
their  dues :  tribute  to  whom  tribute  is  due,  custom  to 
whom  custom";  and  this  is  paralleled  by  Matthew  xxii,  21 : 
"  Bender  therefore  unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are 
Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's  ";  but 
we  also  read  in  the  Talmud  (Shekalim  iii,  2 ;  Pirke 
Aboth  iii,  7)  :  "  Everyone  is  bound  to  discharge  his  obliga- 
tions to  God  with  the  same  conscientiousness  as  his 
obligations  to  men.  Give  unto  God  what  belongs  to 
him."  In  Romans  xiii,  8-10,  we  have  the  precept  of 
mutual  charity  :  "  He  that  loveth  another  hath  fulfilled 
the  law.  For  this,  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery, 

Thou  shalt  not  kill,  Thou  shalt  not  steal and  if  there 

be  any  other  commandment,  it  is  all  comprehended  in 
this  saying — namely :  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as 
thyself.  Love  worketh  no  ill  to  his  neighbour  :  therefore 
love  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  law  "  (cf.  also  Galatiam  v,  14). 
Here  the  source  seems  to  be  Matthew  xxii,  40,  where 
Jesus  tells  the  Scribe,  who  asks  him  which  is  the  greatest 
commandment  in  the  law,  that  it  is  the  love  of  God  and 
one's  neighbour,  and  adds  :  "  On  these  two  command- 
ments hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets."  But  Hillel 
also  is  said  to  have  told  a  Gentile  who  asked  him  to  teach 
the  whole  law  while  he  stood  on  one  leg  :  "  What  dis- 
pleases thee,  do  thou  not  to  any  fellow-man ;  that  is  the 
whole  of  our  teaching  "  (Shabbat,  31).  In  Romans  xiv,  13, 
Paul  warns  his  reader  to  give  no  scandal  to  his  weak 
brother  (also  1  Cor.  viii,  7-13).  Here  we  are  referred  to 
Matthew  xviii,  6-9,  where  Jesus  pronounces  his  woes  on 
those  who  give  scandal :  "  Whoso  shall  offend  one  of  these 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  97 

little  ones  which  believe  in  me,  it  were  better  for  him 
that  a  millstone  were  hanged  about  his  neck,  and  that  he 
were  drowned  in  the  depth  of  the  sea."  But,  apart  from 
the  fact  that  this  prohibition  of  scandal  is  too  natural  and 
obvious  for  Paul  to  need  to  derive  it  from  the  words  of 
Jesus,  it  is  written  in  the  Talmud :  "  Better  were  it  for 
the  evil-minded  to  have  been  born  blind  so  that  they 
might  bring  no  evil  into  the  world  "  (Tanchuma,  71), 
and  "  Whoso  leads  his  fellow-men  into  sin  acts  far  worse 
than  if  he  took  away  his  own  life  "  (Tanchuma,  74). 

In  1  Cor.  xiii,  2,  Paul  speaks  of  the  faith  that  "  moves 
mountains."      But   that   he   was   referring   to   Matthew 

xxi,  22 :  "If  ye  have  faith,  and  doubt  not ye  shall 

say  unto  this  mountain,  Be  thou  removed,  and  be  thou 
cast  into  the  sea;  and  it  shall  be  done,"  seems  very 
doubtful  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  phrase  about  re- 
moving mountains  was  quite  common  among  the  rabbis 
as  an  expression  of  the  power  of  the  discourse  of  a  teacher, 
and  might  easily  be  transferred  to  express  the  power  of 
faith  (Berachoth,  64  ;  Erubim,2$).  The  other  phrases 
that  are  quoted  under  this  head  are  of  no  importance. 
If  it  is  objected  that  a  comparison  of  the  parallel  passages 
shows  that  the  composition  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  is 
more  distinguished  for  "originality"  than  that  of  the 
words  of  Paul,  such  originality  proves  neither  that  they 
are  earlier  nor  that  they  were  uttered  by  Jesus.  It  is  just 
as  conceivable  that  the  words  of  the  apostle  received  their 
greater  freshness  and  force  by  being  afterwards  fitted  into 
the  peculiar  frame  of  the  gospels  as  that  Paul  himself  took 
them  from  the  gospels,  as  Steck,  for  instance,  is  disposed 
to  think.1  Hence,  the  concordances  with  the  gospels  in 
Paul  prove  nothing  whatever  as  regards  the  historicity  of 
Jesus,  and  would  not  if  they  were  more  numerous  than 
those  we  have  quoted. 


1  Pp.  163-72.     Cf.  E.  Hortlein,  "  Jesusworte  bei  Paulus?"  in  the  Prot. 
Monatshefte,  1909,  p.  265,  and  Bruckner,  work  quoted. 

H 


98  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

2.— PAUL  NO  WITNESS  TO  THE  HISTORICITY 
OF  JESUS. 

We  must,  therefore,  acquiesce  in  the  view  of  Wrede  and 
M.  Bruckner,  which  is  also  presented  in  the  Christ-Myth, 
that  Paul  was  not  concerned  with  the  earthly  life  of 
Jesus,  and  his  idea  of  Christ  was  formed  independently 
of  an  historical  Jesus.  "  Of  the  '  life '  of  Jesus,"  says 
Wrede,  "one  single  event  was  of  importance  to  him :  the  end 
of  life,  the  death.  For  him,  however,  even  this  is  not  the 
moral  action  of  a  man ;  indeed,  it  is  not  an  historical  fact 
at  all  for  him,  but  a  superhistorical  fact,  an  event  of  the 
supersensual  world."1  Wrede  therefore  doubts  whether 
the  "  disciple  of  Jesus  "  properly  applies  to  Paul,  if  it  is 
meant  to  express  his  historical  relation  to  Jesus.  "  We 
need  not  repeat  it :  the  life-work  and  living  figure  of 
Jesus  are  not  reflected  in  the  Pauline  theology.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  about  this  fact.  He  of  whom  Paul 
professed  himself  the  disciple  and  servant  was  not  the 
historical  human  being  Jesus,  but  another." 

This  admission  on  the  part  of  so  distinguished  an 
expert  as  Wrede  is  naturally  very  unwelcome  to  liberal 
theologians.  It  has  brought  into  play  a  large  number 
of  theological  pens,  eager  to  weaken  Wrede's  remarks, 
represent  them  as  exaggerations,  and  make  them  harmless. 
"  Attempts  at  reconciliation,"  J.  Weiss  rightly  calls  these 
efforts  in  his  work  Paulus  und  Jesus,  in  which  he 
emphatically  opposes  Wrede,  and  endeavours  to  find 
better  arguments  to  prove  the  close  connection  between 
Paul  and  Jesus.  Jiilicher  also  has  published  a  volume 
in  the  "  Keligionsgeschichtlichen  Volksbiicher,"  entitled 
Paulus  und  Jesus  (1907),  to  correct  the  heresy  of  Wrede. 
In  this  he  has  endeavoured,  with  more  rhetoric  than  force, 
to  explain  the  agreement  and  the  difference  between  Jesus 
and  his  apostles,  and  to  prove  that  Paul  was  not  indifferent 
to  the  personality  of  Jesus.  "  The  '  Lord,'  the  supreme 

1  Paulus,  pp.  85  and  95. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  99 

master,  was  not  shown  to  him  by  the  apostles,  but  by 
God  alone ;  but  what  the  Lord  had  once  taught,  com- 
manded, and  instituted  on  earth  could  [sic]  be  learned  by 
Paul  only  from  men.  The  friendly  co-operation  of  Paul 
with  other  Evangelists,  such  as  Barnabas  and  Mark,  who 
assuredly  did  not  possess  such  remarkable  exclusiveness, 
makes  it  impossible  that  the  gospel-story  should  have 
remained  substantially  unknown  to  Paul."  Who  can  fail 
to  recognise  here  the  method  which  the  liberal  theologian 
regards  as  the  only  "  scientific"  method — namely,  to 
assume  precisely  what  has  to  be  proved — the  connection 
of  Paul  and  the  "  primitive  community  "  with  an  historical 
Jesus?  It  is,  of  course,  more  than  improbable  that,  if 
Peter  and  Barnabas  and  all  the  others  knew  any  details 
about  Jesus,  Paul  should  not  have  heard  them.  But  the 
only  fact  in  the  matter  is  that  the  apostle's  letters  show 
no  trace  whatever  of  such  knowledge.  What  is  the  value 
of  an  argument  which  tries  to  prove  the  historicity  of  the 
gospels  by  means  of  the  Pauline  Epistles,  and  the  historical 
character  of  the  Pauline  references  to  Jesus  by  similar 
references  in  the  gospels  ?  We  ask  :  Is  there  anything  in 
the  Pauline  Epistles  which  compels  us  to  infer  from  them 
the  existence  of  an  historical  Jesus  ?  Did  the  writer  of 
these  Epistles  know  anything  in  detail  of  the  events  which 
the  gospels  describe  as  historical  ?  We  cannot  be  put  off 
with  the  assurance :  Yes,  he  must  have  known  of  them ; 
that  is  to  say,  if  things  fell  out  precisely  as  the  New 
Testament  writings  say  that  they  did — which  is  the  thing 
to  be  proved.1 

1  In  his  pamphlet  Hat  Jesus  gelebt  ?  Jiilicher  seems  to  deny  that  there 
is  any  difficulty  here  at  all,  and  appeals  from  those  who  deny  Jesus  to  the 
"judicious  historian,"  who  must,  of  course,  be  a  theologian.  It  is  true 
that  he  generally  agrees  with  Wrede :  "  The  nucleus  of  the  gospel  is  for 
Paul  the  superhistorical  element  in  the  appearance  and  fate  of  Jesus  and 
the  superhuman  in  it."  "But,"  he  asks,  "ought  one  to  expect  in  him  a 
lively  interest  in  the  details  of  the  historical  greatness  and  the  human 
personality  of  Jesus  ?  "  Then  we  have  the  pronouncement  of  the  "  judicious 
historian."  "  One  can  only  explain  the  appeal  of  those  who  deny  Jesus  to 
Paul  and  his  successors  as  witnesses  against  the  historicity  of  Jesus  by 
their  complete  inability  to  get  from  their  own  minds  into  that  of  a  man 


100  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

We  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that  Paul  ought  to  have 
taken  all  his  ideas  from  the  words  of  Jesus.  But  we 
ought  to  find  the  influence  of  the  historical  Jesus  some- 
where in  the  thoughts  and  words  of  Paul,  especially  as  he 
often  treats  of  things  which  are  prominent  in  the  teaching 
of  Jesus.  But  that  he  never  appeals  to  any  distinctive 
acts  of  "  the  Lord,"  that  he  never  quotes  the  sayings  of 
Jesus  in  the  gospels  as  such,  and  never  applies  them,  even 
where  the  words  and  conduct  of  Jesus  would  be  most 
useful  for  strengthening  his  own  views  and  deductions — 
for  we  must  ignore  what  has  been  said  in  refutation  of 
this  statement — all  this  is  for  us  a  certain  proof  that  Paul 
knew  nothing  of  Jesus.  We  should  like  to  have  it 
explained  how  a  man  who  has  the  authority  of  "the 
Lord  "  on  his  side  in  a  heated  conflict  with  his  opponents 
(on  the  question  of  the  law,  for  instance),  and  for  whom 
the  mere  mention  of  it  would  suffice  to  silence  his 
opponents,  instead  of  doing  so,  uses  the  most  complicated 
arguments  from  the  Scriptures  and  the  most  determined 
dialectic,  when  he  might  have  acted  so  much  more 
simply.  Why,  for  instance  (Gal.  iii,  31),  does  he  not 
recall  that  Jesus  also  had  discussed  the  Jewish  laws  about 
food,  in  order  to  convince  Peter  that  he  is  wrong  in 
avoiding  the  tables  of  the  Gentiles  ?  Why  does  he  not 
mention  that  the  Jews  crucified  Jesus  on  the  Passover, 
the  chief  solemnity,  and  had  thus  themselves  shown  that 
the  law  was  not  absolutely  valid  ?  He  has  not  himself 

who  lived  1,900  years  ago — that  is  to  say,  the  inability  to  think,  judge, 
and  reason  historically  ."  We  reply  :  It  is  only  the  complete  inability 
to  put  themselves  in  the  frame  of  mind  of  a  man  who  is  convinced  that 
God's  son,  the  second  God,  wandered  on  earth  in  human  form  and  died  on 
the  cross — only  the  complete  obsession  of  theologians  in  the  ancient  way 
of  thinking,  which  will  not  permit  them  to  see  the  wood  for  the  trees,  and 
suffers  them  to  say  that  such  a  man  had  no  interest  in  the  earthly  life  of 
the  God.  Steudel  has  said  all  that  need  be  said  on  the  matter  on  the 
occasion  of  the  Berlin  debate,  and  it  is  unnecessary  to  return  to  it. 
"When  Paul  says,"  Julicher  continues,  "that  Jesus,  after  a  poor  human 
life,  is  taken  from  the  circle  of  disciples  to  heaven  by  the  death  of  a 
criminal,  having  given  [?]  them  instructions  in  regard  to  the  new  Church, 
has  he  given  up  the  personality  of  Jesus  in  favour  of  a  mystic  figure  ? " 
Who  will  gauge  the  depths  of  that  sentence  ? 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUfc  101 

seen  the  personal  conduct  of  Jesus,  like  the  disciples  at 
Jerusalem.  He  knew  his  deeds  and  words  only  at  second 
hand,  and  may  therefore  not  have  had  them  sufficiently 
vivid  in  his  mind  to  quote  them  frequently.  But  certain 
leading  features  and  fundamental  principles  of  the  life  of 
Jesus  such  as  the  above,  which  affected  his  own  propaganda, 
he  ought  to  have  known  and  used.  If  he  knew  of  an 
historical  Jesus,  it  remains  the  most  insoluble  of  problems 
why  he  made  no  use  of  the  knowledge. 

Let  us  not  be  told  that  Paul's  letters  are  "  occasional 
papers,"  and  the  apostle  had  no  opportunity  to  speak 
more  fully  about  Jesus.  This  phrase  of  Deissmann, 
"occasional  papers,"  is  one  of  those  with  which  theo- 
logians conceal  from  themselves  and  others  the  difficulty 
of  the  problem.  These  letters,  swarming  with  dogmatic 
discussions  of  the  most  subtle  character,  are  merely 
occasional  papers,  so  that  the  apostle  could  not  be 
expected  to  betray  any  acquaintance  with  the  historical 
Jesus  !  It  is  the  same  sort  of  science  as  that  which,  in 
order  to  get  out  of  a  difficulty,  would  persuade  us  that 
Paul  had  spoken  a  good  deal  of  Jesus  in  his  oral  discourses, 
and  so  did  not  return  to  the  subject  in  his  letters.  This 
sort  of  "  psychology  "  does  not  impose  on  us,  and  we  find 
it  nothing  less  than  pitiful  when  Weinel  sorrowfully 
confesses :  "  I  myself  once  regarded  the  question  in  this 
false  light"  (namely,  that  there  is  little  or  nothing  about 
Jesus  in  Paul)  ;  and  then  adds :  "  What  Paul  says  about 
Jesus  and  his  words  is  little  when  measured  by  the 
standard  of  a  gospel,  and  little  also  if  it  is  thought  that 
a  Paul  ought  to  base  all  his  thoughts  on  the  words  of 
Jesus.  It  is,  however,  not  enough  to  find  the  existence 
of  Jesus  convincingly  in  the  Pauline  Epistles ;  the  very 
words  of  Jesus  are  found  in  Paul  at  every  important 
stage  [!] ;  and  there  are  not  only  quite  a  number  of 
details  which  Paul  knows  and  transmits  [!] ,  but  all  the 
prominent  features  of  the  preaching  and  nature  of  Jesus 
are  preserved  for  us  in  Paul.  There  is,  therefore,  a  great 


102  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

deal,  if  the  Epistles  are  not  approached  with  the  old  preju- 
dice, and  if  we  remember  that  they  are  all  occasional  papers 
and  never  have  reason  to  speak  expressly  about  Jesus  " 
(p.  16)  .*  This  pronouncement  is  on  the  same  high  level 
as  that  of  Feine,  who  says  that  Paul  has  "  taken  great 
pains  to  obtain  a  clear  and  comprehensive  picture  of  the 
activity  and  personality  of  Jesus.'" 

We  must,  therefore,  regard  the  effort  of  theologians  to 
disprove  any  statement  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  an  his- 
torical personality  in  Paul  as  a  complete  failure.  Any 
attempt  to  find  proof  of  the  historical  existence  of  Jesus 
in  the  Pauline  Epistles  is  futile  from  the  mere  fact  that 
the  gospels  are  used  to  check  the  contents  of  the  Epistles, 
although  they  are  supposed  to  have  been  written  after  the 
Epistles.  A  proof  could  be  found  in  the  Epistles  only  if 
they  unequivocally  pointed  to  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels. 
As  this  is  not  the  case,  and  the  relevant  passages  have 
first  to  be  interpreted  by  means  of  the  gospels  and 
explained  in  the  same  sense  as  they,  it  is  absurd  to  quote 
the  Pauline  utterances  on  Christ  as  evidence  for  the 
gospel  Jesus,  and  pretend  that  the  historicity  of  Jesus  is 
proved  by  the  apostle.  Such  proof  runs  in  a  vicious 
circle,  and  is  no  proof  at  all.  The  frantic  efforts  of 
theologians  to  discover  the  historical  Jesus  in  the  Pauline 
Epistles  merely  show,  if  they  show  anything,  the  impossi- 
bility of  quoting  Paul  as  a  witness  to  the  historicity  of 
Jesus. 

3.— THE  QUESTION  OF  GENUINENESS. 
The  Pauline  Christ  is  a  metaphysical  principle,  and  his 
incarnation  only  one  in  idea,  an  imaginary  element  of  his 
religious  system.  The  man  Jesus  is  in  Paul  the  idealised 
suffering  servant  of  God  of  Isaiah  and  the  just  man  of 
Wisdom  an  intermediate  stage  of  metaphysical  evolu- 
tion, not  an  historical  personality.  When  we  admit  this, 

1  See,  on  this,  Krieck,  Die  neueste  OrtJiodoxie  und  das  Christusproblem, 
1910,  p.  47.  a  Jesus  Christus  und  Paulus,  1902,  p.  229. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  103 

we  remove  the  chief  obstacle  that  has  hitherto  prevented 
theologians  from  studying  seriously  the  question  of  the 
spuriousness  of  the  Pauline  Epistles.  What  they  have  said 
on  the  subject  up  to  the  present  shows  anything  but  an 
unprejudiced  inquiry  into  the  matter.  Historical  theology 
has  need  of  genuine  Pauline  Epistles,  in  order  to  base  on 
them  its  belief  in  an  historical  Jesus,  and  therefore  they 
must  not  be  spurious.  But  how  are  they  going  to  prove 
that  they  are  genuine  ?  There  are  no  non-Christian 
witnesses.  The  silence  of  Philo  and  Josephus  about  an 
apostle  who  is  supposed  to  have  thrown  the  Jews  into 
excitement  over  the  whole  earth  (Acts  xxiv,  5),  to  have 
been  persecuted  by  them  with  the  direst  hatred,  and  to 
have  been  dragged  into  court  more  than  once,  involving 
the  highest  Jewish  and  Roman  authorities,  has  not  yet 
been  explained  by  our  opponents.  What  about  Christian 
witnesses  ?  There  are  "  enough  of  them,"  says  J.  Weiss. 
Unfortunately,  what  the  theologians  bring  forward — such 
as  the  letter  of  Clement  to  the  Corinthians,  on  which 
Weiss  relies — have  long  been  shown  to  be  unreliable  by 
the  Dutch,  especially  by  Loman,1  Van  Manen,  and  Steck.3 
There  is  no  proof  of  the  existence  of  Pauline  Epistles 
before  Justin,  and  it  remains  an  open  question  whether 
Justin  had  any  knowledge  of  such  Epistles.  Papias  also  is 
silent  about  Paul's  Epistles,  even  at  a  point  where  he  would 
have  been  bound  to  mention  them  if  he  had  known  them.3 
It  is  also  a  matter  for  reflection  that  as  early  as  the  second 
century  there  were  heretical  sects,  such  as  the  Severians, 
who  declared  that  all  the  Epistles  of  Paul  were  spurious. 

(a)  Emotional  Arguments  for  the  Genuineness. — We 
can,  therefore,  only  seek  to  prove  the  genuineness  of  the 
Pauline  Epistles  by  internal  arguments,  by  philological 
considerations  or  analysis  of  their  style.  But  how  we  can 
in  this  way  establish  that  the  Epistles  really  were  written 


1  Quastiones  Paulines.  2  Galaterbrief,  p.  287. 

3  Eusebius,  Eccl.  Hist.,  Ill,  40. 


104  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

by  the  apostle  Paul,  and  belong  to  the  middle  of  the  first 
century,  seeing  that  we  have  no  independent  specimens  of 
Paul's  writing,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  When  a  philologist 
like  Wilamowitz  infers  the  genuineness  of  the  Epistles 
from  their  vivid  and  personal  style,  and  says,  categorically, 
"  This  style  is  Paul,  and  no  one  else,"  1  we  merely  have 
one  more  proof  of  the  dependence  of  our  whole  science  on 
theology.  How  does  the  philologist  know  the  character 
and  personality  of  Paul  if  not  from  the  Epistles  issued 
under  his  name  ?  He  therefore  finds  the  test  of  genuine- 
ness in  the  Epistles  themselves  ;  and  when  he  discovers 
that  the  Epistles  naturally  meet  this  test,  he  thinks  that 
he  has  established  their  genuineness.  "  A  standard  is 
used,"  says  Van  Manen,  "  which  has  been  taken  from  the 
Epistle  or  Epistles  whose  genuineness  is  in  question,  and 
students  proceed  as  if  the  picture  of  the  apostle  of  the 
Gentiles  which  they  owe  to  tradition,  to  descriptions  by 
third  persons,  or  to  their  own  research,  was  obtained 
apart  from  the  Epistle  or  Epistles  to  which  it  is  applied. 
They  exclaim :  Paul  to  the  life  !  They  recognise  one 
feature  after  another.  But  what  have  they  really  proved  ? 
They  have  merely  hoaxed  themselves." 

But  what  about  the  "  powerful  personality,"  the  "  unin- 
ventible  originality,"  the  "  soul  "  that  lives  in  the  Epistles  ? 
When  our  opponents  can  find  no  other  argument,  they 
have  naturally  to  rely  on  the  originality,  the  uniqueness, 
the  impossibility  of  inventing  the  style  of  the  Epistles. 
On  this  point  we  find  von  Soden,  Julicher,  Weiss,  and  all 
the  rest  in  full  agreement.  "  Then  the  general  impression 
made  by  the  Epistles,"  exclaims  J.  Weiss,  ecstatically— 
we  almost  see  him  with  his  eyes  raised  to  heaven  and  his 
hand  laid  on  the  text  of  Paul — "  this  richness  of  tones  and 
shades,  this  extraordinary  originality — any  man  who  cannot 
feel  it  convicts  himself  of  great  uncultivation  of  literary 
taste  and  judgment  "  (p.  100). 


Kultur  der  Gegenw.,  I,  p.  159.  a  R&nerbrief,  p.  185. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  105 

But  who  in  the  world  contests  a  word  of  this  ?  What 
we  contest  is  the  deducing  of  the  apostle  Paul  from  these 
features  of  the  Epistles.  No  matter  how  "  personal  "  the 
style  of  the  Epistles  may  be,  it  does  not  give  us  the  least 
assurance  that  the  Epistles  were  written  by  the  man 
whose  name  appears  at  the  head  of  each.  Nor  does  it 
follow  from  the  "  distinctiveness  of  the  style  "  that  they 
could  not  have  been  produced  by  a  school  or  a  group.  Is 
not  the  style  of  the  Johannine  literature  even  more 
distinctive  ?  Or  must  the  Homeric  poems  have  been 
composed  by  a  single  Homer  because  they  all  have  the 
same  style  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  moreover,  the  Epistles 
do  not  accord  with  each  other,  nor  is  there  complete 
harmony  within  the  limits  of  a  single  Epistle.1  As  to  the 
originality,  van  Manen  observed :  "  To  be  original  in  any 
form,  in  any  language  or  age,  is  just  as  possible,  provided 
that  the  man  has  the  necessary  ability,  for  one  who  covers 
himself  with  the  mask  of  some  distinguished  person  as  for 
one  who  writes  in  his  own  name  and  person,  for  the 
pseudonymous  writer  just  as  well  as  for  the  candid  writer  " 
(p.  188).  On  the  principles  of  our  opponents,  Nietzsche's 
work,  Thus  Spake  Zarathustra,  must  have  been  written 
by  the  ancient  Persian  religious  founder,  because  it  is  so 
personal,  so  original,  so  rich  in  tones  and  shades.  On  the 
same  principles,  the  fourth  gospel  was  evidently  written 
by  the  apostle  John  ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  up  to  the 
middle  of  the  last  century  theologians  affected  to  perceive 
in  it  the  very  heart-beat  of  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved. 
"Which,"  as  van  Manen  says,  "ought  to  make  us  more 
cautious,  and  raise  the  question  whether  we  are  not  at 
times  too  ready  to  identify  an  old  and  long-standing 
opinion  with  the  fresh  and  unadulterated  impression 
which  the  work,  the  Epistle,  would  make  on  an  impartial 
reader.  It  is  at  least  certain  that  as  yet  no  one  has 
succeeded  in  defining  the  'personal'  element  in  such  a 

1  Compare  Steck,  p.  363. 


106  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

way  that  any  moderate  group  would  agree  in  the  descrip- 
tion. A  satisfactory  portrait  of  Paul  is  one  of  the  things 
that  are  yet  no  more  than  pious  wishes  "  (p.  189). 

Jiilicher  says,  in  reference  to  the  "  sharp  variation  of 
tone,  the  moods,  the  allusions  to  things  known  only  to  the 
people  to  whom  the  Epistle  is  addressed,  and  the  outbreaks 
of  almost  sinister  anger  in  the  Pauline  Epistles"  (p.  25), 
that  no  man  could  put  himself  in  the  frame  of  mind  of 
another  in  this  way.  In  that  he  merely  shows  that  a 
modern  professor  of  theology  sitting  at  his  desk  is 
incapable  of  doing  it,  not  that  an  impassioned  Gnostic 
of  the  second  century,  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  against 
legal  Judaism  and  ardently  seeking  to  vindicate  his 
conception  of  the  gospel,  could  not  have  "  invented  " 
these  things.  We  need  not,  therefore,  regard  him  as  a 
"  forger  "  who  "  works  with  incredible  fineness  and  creates 
the  most  extraordinary  monuments  of  a  great  enthusiasm  " 
(p.  26).  He  need  only  put  into  words  his  own  feelings 
and  thoughts,  and,  as  was  not  uncommon  at  the  time, 
place  on  the  work  the  name  of  the  apostle  Paul,  with 
whom  he  feels  a  spiritual  affinity,  or  whom  he  has  chosen 
for  some  other  reason ;  and  what  seems  to  Jiilicher 
impossible  is  done. 

(b)  Arguments  for  Genuineness  from  the  Times. — The 
defenders  of  the  genuineness  of  the  Pauline  Epistles 
would  be  in  an  evil  plight  if  they  had  no  other  arguments 
than  the  aesthetic  considerations  we  have  just  examined. 
They  have  others,  however.  According  to  von  Soden,  no 
one  has  ever  given  an  intelligible  theory  of  the  origin  of 
these  Epistles  in  the  second  century.  "  They  deal  with 
far  too  many  things,  and  with  the  most  lively  interest, 
which  no  one  in  Christendom  regarded  seriously  in  the 
second  century,  as  we  learn  from  other  and  reliable 
documents"  (p.  29).  Jiilicher  also  says:  "  They  fit  no 
other  period  but  the  years  between  50  and  64."  Others, 
however,  especially  the  Dutch  experts,  are  of  the  contrary 
opinion.  They  have,  amongst  other  things,  pointed  to 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  107 

the  rich  inner  life  of  the  communities  to  which  the 
apostle  directs  his  Epistles,  and  to  the  complex  organisa- 
tion and  ecclesiastical  institutions,  which  are  hardly 
consistent  with  the  view  that  these  were  newly  founded 
and  quite  young  communities ;  they  rather  indicate  that 
they  had  been  in  existence  for  a  long  time.  Van  Manen 
in  particular  has  described  the  condition  of  the  Koman 
community  as  one  that  we  cannot  conceive  in  the  year  59, 
in  which  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  supposed  to  have 
been  addressed  to  it  (p.  155) ;  and  Steck  has  shown  the 
same  in  regard  to  the  Corinthian  community  (p.  265)  .* 
Such  institutions  as  the  vicarious  baptism  for  the  dead 
(1  Cor.  xv,  29)  and  the  ascetic  law  of  marriage  (1  Cor.  vii) 
rather  point  to  the  second  century,  with  its  Gnostic 
influence,  than  to  the  middle  of  the  first ;  unless  we 
admit  that  the  Jesus-cult  is  much  older  than  our 
theologians  are  disposed  to  think,  and  Gnosticism  is  the 
root  of  the  whole  of  Christianity.  The  divisions  and 
parties  of  the  Corinthian  community,  also,  which  the 
apostle  is  eager  to  conciliate,  and  the  nature  of  which  no 
one  has  yet  succeeded  in  explaining,  give  the  impression 
that  they  "  are  merely  described  schematically  under 
names  which  were  familiar  from  apostolic  times,  and  the 
general  aim  of  the  warning  against  ecclesiastical  splits 
was  such  as  the  later  period  everywhere  made  necessary."2 
It  has  been  said  that  the  gift  of  tongues  which  is 
mentioned  in  1  Cor.  xii-xiv  had  "  quite  disappeared  "  in 
the  second  century,  and  this  is  advanced  as  a  proof  that 
the  Pauline  Epistles  must  have  been  written  in  the  first 
century.8  But  the  "  ecstatic  or  Methodistic  "  phenomenon 

1  Besides  van  Manen  (p.  14),  William  B.  Smith  has,  in  an  article  in  the 
Journal  of  Biblical  Literature  (1910),  which  even  Harnack  appreciates, 
shown  that  Romans  i,  7  originally  read,  "  To  all  that  are  beloved  of  God," 
instead  of  "To  all  that  be  in  Rome,  beloved  of  God,  called  to  be  saints," 
so  that  the  Epistle  of  Paul  was  not  addressed  to  the  Romans,  but  was  a 
theological  message  to  all  Christians  in  general :  a  view  that  Zahn  has 
adopted  in  the  third  edition  of  his  Einleitung  in  den  Rb'merbrief.     (See 
Harnack  in  Preusclien's  Zeitschr.,  1902,  p.  83.) 

2  Steck,  work  quoted,  p.  72. 

3  Otto  Schmiedel,  Die  Hauptprobleme  der  Leben-Jesu-Forschung,  p.  14. 


108  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

of  tongues  is  so  general,  and  recurs  so  constantly  in 
periods  of  religious  excitement,  being  even  found  among 
certain  religious  sects  and  institutions  of  our  own  time, 
that  the  silence  in  regard  to  it  of  the  rest  of  the  literature 
of  the  second  century  gives  us  no  right  to  conclude  that 
the  Pauline  Epistles  are  genuine.  We  know  the  gift  of 
tongues  from  the  Epistles,  which  are  assumed  to  belong 
to  the  first  century.  But  how  can  anyone  say  that  these 
Epistles  must  belong  to  the  first  century  because  there  is 
question  in  them  of  the  gift  of  tongues  ?  The  question 
of  circumcision,  also,  was  by  no  means  unimportant  in 
the  second  century,  as  Clemen  says  ; l  so  much  is  clear 
from  the  Dialogue  of  Justin  with  the  Jew  Trypho 
(cap.  47).  The  question  is  there  raised  whether  the 
Judaeo-Christians  who  cling  to  the  law  can  be  saved, 
and  the  reply  is  that  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should 
not  be,  provided  they  do  not  press  the  law  on  the  Gentile 
Christians  under  the  pretext  that  they  otherwise  could 
not  be  saved,  and  do  not  refuse  to  live  with  the  Gentile 
Christians.  That  indicates  that  about  the  middle  of  the 
second  century  the  two  parties  in  Christendom  still  faced 
each  other  much  as  we  find  them  doing  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians.2 

As  is  well  known,  the  attitude  of  the  Christian  towards 
the  law  and  his  relation  to  Judaism  is  a  central  pre- 
occupation of  the  Pauline  system.  Now,  during  the 
whole  of  the  first  century,  at  least  until  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  there  was  no  opposition  between  Jews  and 
Christians  in  regard  to  the  law.  They  lived  in  friendliness 
with  each  other,  visited  each  other,  intermarried,  and 
claimed  each  other's  help — in  sickness,  for  instance.  So, 
amongst  many  others,  Chwolson  tells  us — and  he  has 
carefully  investigated  the  matter — in  his  work  on  The 
Last  Passover.  In  the  year  62,  according  to  the  account 


1  Paultis,  sein  Leben  und  sein  Wirken,  I,  p.  11,  1904. 
3  Steck,  p.  380. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  109 

of  Josephus,  the  high  priest  Hannas  had  James  executed, 
and  this  displeased  the  Pharisees.  According  to  Acts 
(xv,  5),  some  of  the  Pharisees  joined  the  sect.  Indeed, 
about  the  year  58,  the  scribes  among  the  Pharisees  stood 
up  for  Paul,  and  acknowledged  that  they  found  no  wrong 
in  him  (Acts  xxiii,  9).  Acts,  in  fact,  knows  nothing  of  a 
fundamental  difference  between  Paul  and  the  rest  of  the 
apostles  in  regard  to  their  attitude  towards  Judaism,  and 
even  the  account  of  his  travels — the  part  of  Acts  which 
has  the  strongest  claim  to  be  regarded  as  genuine — is 
silent  as  to  any  difference  of  mind  between  Paul  and  the 
first  disciples  of  Jesus,  and  does  not  betray  by  a  single 
syllable  that  Paul  has  promulgated  a  gospel  far  in 
advance  of  that  of  the  original  apostles  and  surpassing 
theirs  both  in  the  richness  of  its  contents  and  the  depth 
of  its  thoughts.  Compare  with  this  the  vigour  with 
which  the  Pauline  Epistles  assail  the  Mosaic  law,  the 
profound  opposition  between  the  ideas  of  Paul  in  the 
Epistles  and  those  of  the  Jews,  especially  of  the  Pharisees, 
his  rejection  and  fresh  interpretation  of  the  older  Jewish 
idea  of  the  Messiah,  his  glorification  of  the  crucified  and 
risen  Jesus  at  the  cost  of  all  that  was  dear  to  the  religious 
feeling  of  the  Jews  ;  and  then  reflect  whether  such  a 
system  was  more  likely  to  develop  in  the  first  century,  a 
few  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  or  in  the  second 
century — whether  it  does  not  fit  any  period  rather  than 
the  years  between  50  and  64  ! 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was,  as  the  Jews  affirm,  and  as 
Lublinski  and  others  have  shown,  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  that  brought  about  the  breach  between  Jews 
and  Christians.  It  was  only  when,  after  the  fall  of  the 
holy  city,  the  Jewish  priestly  organisation  and  religious 
life  were  put  out  of  joint,  and  the  Jews,  in  order  to  main- 
tain the  purity  and  strength  of  their  vanquished  faith, 
stood  aloof,  and  sought  in  an  increased  service  of  the  law 
some  compensation  for  the  loss'  of  the  temple,  that  the 
Christians,  with  their  more  liberal  idea  of  worship,  their 


110  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

inner  morality  fostered  by  the  prophets,  and  their  stronger 
sense  of  penitence  on  account  of  their  expectation  of  a 
speedy  end  of  the  world,  began  to  separate  from  the  other 
Jews,  from  whom  they  had  as  yet  not  been  essentially 
distinct,  and  realise  that  they  were  a  special  religious 
community  in  opposition  to  Judaism.  This  separation 
increased  to  deadly  enmity  and  irreconcilable  hatred 
when,  about  the  end  of  the  first  century,  the  section  of 
the  Christians  opposed  to  the  law  got  the  upper  hand, 
when  the  Christians  went  on  to  deny  the  validity  of  the 
law  and  its  indispensability  for  religious  salvation ;  when, 
in  the  last  decisive  struggles  of  the  Jews  against  the 
Romans,  the  Christians  took  the  side  of  the  latter,  and, 
abandoning  their  national  hopes  of  the  restoration  of 
Jerusalem  and  the  political  recovery  of  Israel,  endeavoured 
to  prevent  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple,  and  thus  openly 
separated  from  their  compatriots.  The  Jews  now  refused 
to  have  any  intercourse  with  the  Christians  ;  they  cursed 
and  burned  their  Scriptures,  and  expelled  them  from  the 
communities.  The  Christians  avenged  this  conduct  by 
branding  the  Jews  as  obdurate.  They  reproached  them 
with  cutting  themselves  off  from  the  promise,  and  con- 
trasted themselves  as  the  chosen  of  heaven  with  their 
former  compatriots  as  outcasts  of  God  and  damned.  This 
is  the  very  idea  that  pervades  the  Pauline  Epistles. 
Such  ideas  as  those  set  forth  in  Romans  ix  to  xi,  repre- 
senting that  the  Jews,  in  spite  of  the  promises  made  to 
their  fathers,  will  have  no  part  in  the  blessings  of  Chris- 
tianity, had  no  foundation  whatever  in  the  time  about  the 
year  59.  The  question  why  the  Jews  were  excluded  from 
salvation  could  not  arise  and  be  answered  until  they  were 
actually  outside  Christianity.  Yet  at  the  time  when  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  usually  supposed  to  have  been 
written  the  mission  to  the  Gentiles  had  only  just  fully 
developed,  and  at  least  those  of  the  Jews  who  lived  in  the 
dispersion  had  as  yet  had  no  opportunity  of  learning  the 
gospel.  How,  then,  could  Israel  be  at  that  time  described 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  111 

as  "broken  off  from  the  trunk"  (Romans  xi,  17-21)? 
How  could  anyone  talk  of  a  "fall"  of  the  Jews,  which 
is  to  be  visited  by  "  the  sternness  of  God "  ?  This, 
as  van  Manen  observes,  presupposes  the  fall  of  Jeru- 
salem, "  the  first  important  fact  after  the  death  of  Jesus 
in  which  the  Christians  might  see  a  punishment" 
(p.  159). 

The  Christian  tendency  that  most  strenuously  opposed 
Judaism  was  Gnosticism.  Its  roots  go  back,  as  Fried- 
lander1  and  others  have  shown,  into  the  period  of  the 
origin  of  Christianity.  But  it  is  not  until  the  second 
century  that  we  encounter  it  as  a  fully -developed 
religious  -  philosophical  theory  or  a  theosophy.  Now 
Paulinism  has  the  closest  affinity  to  Gnosticism,  as 
Holsten,  Pfleiderer,  Weizsacker,  and  others  have  shown. 
In  both  the  idea  of  faith  changes  into  the  idea  of  know- 
ledge ;  this  knowledge  is  based  on  divine  revelation  :  the 
salvation  of  the  soul  depends  on  the  recognition  of  certain 
facts  of  revelation.  In  both  we  find  a  thoroughly  dual- 
istic  system,  in  which  God  and  the  world,  law  and 
grace,  death  and  life,  spirit  and  flesh,  etc.,  are  set  in  the 
sharpest  contrast,  and  the  tendency  to  mysticism  and 
asceticism  goes  hand  in  hand  with  the  striving  after  a 
speculative  interpretation  of  the  facts  of  religious  experi- 
ence. Besides  their  idea  of  God,  and  their  Christology  and 
doctrine  of  redemption,  they  have  in  common  a  large 
number  of  ideas,  such  as  gnosis,  grace,  pleroma,  ectroma, 
life,  light,  etc.  They  agree,  also,  not  only  in  their  easy 
disdain  of  history,  but  also  in  their  hostility  to  Judaism 
and  their  depreciation — indeed,  rejection — of  the  law.  In 
one  case  the  connection  between  Gnosticism  and  Paul  is 
so  evident  that  it  may  be  cited  as  a  proof  that  Paul 
knew  nothing  of  an  historical  Jesus ;  it  is  the  passage  in 
1  Cor.  ii,  6,  where  the  apostle  speaks  of  the  "  princes  of 
this  world,"  who  knew  not  what  they  did  when  they 

1  Der  vorchristliche  Gnosticismus,  1898. 


112  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

"crucified  the  Lord  of  glory."  It  was  long  ago  recog- 
nised by  van  Manen  and  others  that  by  these  "  princes  " 
we  must  understand,  not  the  Jewish  or  Roman  authorities, 
nor  any  terrestrial  powers  whatever,  but  the  "  enemies  of 
this  world,"  the  demons — higher  powers,  which  do  indeed 
rule  the  earth  for  a  time,  but  will  "  pass  away  "  before  the 
coming  triumph  of  the  saviour-God.1  That  is  precisely  the 
Gnostic  idea  of  the  death  of  the  Redeemer,  and  it  is  here 
put  forward  by  Paul ;  from  that  we  may  infer  that  he  did 
not  conceive  the  life  of  Jesus  as  an  historical  event,  but  a 
general  metaphysical  drama,  in  which  heaven  and  earth 
struggle  for  the  mastery. 

It  is  well  known  that  prominent  Gnostics  like  Basilides, 
Valentine,  and  especially  Marcion,  appeal  confidently  to 
Paul.  Marcion's  liking  for  Paul  won  him  the  name  of 
"  apostle  of  the  heretics."  All  this  may  be  explained  in 
the  sense  that  the  Gnosticism  of  the  second  century  had 
a  source  in  Paul,  and  appropriated  his  ideas  in  the  expo- 
sition of  their  own  doctrines.  But  it  is  just  as  possible 
that  both  Paulinism  and  Gnosticism  belong  to  the  same 
age,  and  are  only  different  branches  from  the  same  root. 
This  seems  to  me  the  more  probable  when  we  reflect  how 
well  the  ground  must  have  been  prepared  for  the  apostle's 
letters  if  they  were  to  be  understood  in  the  communities. 
Such  difficult  dogmatic  disquisitions  as  those  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  imply  a  long  period  of  evolution,  during 
which  the  apostle's  ideas  must  have  been  much  discussed 
in  the  communities.  They  suggest  a  familiarity  with 
Paulinism  which  is  hardly  credible,  especially  in  distant 
Rome,  at  the  time  when  the  Epistle  is  usually  supposed 
to  have  been  written.  "  Paulinism,"  says  van  Manen, 
"  seems  to  be  a  generally  familiar  and  much-discussed 
phenomenon.  It  has  its  supporters  and  its  opponents,  its 
catchwords  and  stereotyped  phrases,  its  own  language, 
which  needs  no  explanation  because  the  readers  are 

1  Romerbrief,  p.  124. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  113 

assumed  to  understand  it"  (p.  141).  Without  any 
explanation  the  apostle  uses  a  number  of  expressions 
which  would  have  been  understood  at  once  in  Gnostic 
circles  of  the  second  century,  but  could  not  possibly  have 
been  understood  in  the  middle  of  the  first  century,  a  few 
decades  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  in  letters  to  newly- 
founded  communities. 

But  it  is  particularly  remarkable    that   Paul   himself 
should  have  attained  so  detailed  and  systematic  a  know- 
ledge  of    Gnostic    ideas   so   soon   after   the   tragedy   of 
Golgotha.     One    has    only   to    recall    the    fundamental 
points  of  the  Pauline  system  to   see  that  van  Manen  is 
right  in  saying  that  "  a  long  time   must    have  elapsed 
since  the  appearance  of  the  first  disciples  before  a  new 
tendency  of  this  character  could  arise.     We  have  here 
more  than  a  simple  triumph  over  the  repugnance  to  the 
cross,  by  which  pious  Jews  were   enabled  to  accept  the 
ideal  of  a  suffering  Messiah,  to  hail  Jesus  of  Nazareth  as 
the  Messiah  promised  to  their  fathers,  and  to  join  the 
new  brotherhood.     We  have  here  a  complete  breach  with 
Judaism,  a  new  and  substantially  complete  system,  need- 
ing only  to  be  elaborated  in  detail  and  accommodated  to 
the  needs  of  a  later  generation,  a  thorough  reform  of  the 
prevailing  system,  assuredly  the  fruit  of  a  deep  experience 
of   life   and   a   long   period  of   earnest   thought."     This 
reform  is  supposed,  according  to  the  prevailing  view,  to 
have  taken  place  a  few  years  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  to 
have  been  brought  about  by  a  man  who,  himself  a  Jew 
and  pupil  of  the  Jewish  scholars,  is  supposed  to  have 
lived  wholly  in  Judaism   until  that  time,  and  to  have 
arisen  in  circumstances  which  would  hinder  rather  than 
further  it !     That  seems  to  be  quite  unintelligible  from 
the  psychological  point  of  view.     "  It  is  simply  incon- 
ceivable,"  says  van  Manen,   "that  Paul   the  Jew,  who 
persecuted  the  community  on  conviction,  brought  about 
so  extraordinary  a  revolution  in  the  faith  of  this  com- 
munity almost  immediately  after  he  accepted  it.     It  is 

I 


114  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

not  conceivable  that  this  conscientious  zealot  for  Israel's 
God,  Israel's  laws,  morals,  and  customs,  should  perceive 
so  suddenly,  when  he  has  overcome  his  repugnance  to 
the  cross,  that  this  God  was  not  the  most-high,  but  must 
make  way  for  the  father,  whom  neither  Jews  nor  Gentiles 
had  known  before  the  coming  of  Christ  [?]  ;  that  this 
Christ  was  not  the  one  promised  to  their  fathers,  the 
Messiah,  but  a  supernatural  being,  God's  own  son,  who 
merely  assumed  for  a  time  the  appearance  of  a  man  like 
ourselves ;  and  that  the  law,  with  all  its  prescriptions 
and  promises,  could  and  should  be  thrust  aside  as  without 
value  or  significance.  We  must  not  forget  that  all  this 
is  new  in  the  Pauline  gospel,  and  has  no  relation  to  the 
'  faith '  of  the  first  disciples,  who  were  still  full-blooded 
Jews  in  their  Messianic  expectations.  Let  us  try  to 
realise  what  it  means  for  a  serious-minded  and  pious 
Jew,  like  the  convert  Paul,  to  abandon  the  God  of  his 
fathers  and  bow  down  to  one  who  had  hitherto  been 
unknown.  Consider  the  dependence  of  the  pious  Jew  on 
the  law  and  the  morals  and  customs  it  prescribes. 
Imagine  what  is  required  to  make  a  man  accept  as  a 
supernatural  being,  as  God's  own  son,  one  whom  he  had 
shortly  before  regarded  as  an  impostor,  and  who  had 
died  on  the  cross  as  a  criminal  a  few  years  before,  even 
if  he  now  acknowledges  his  innocence  and  his  high 
character  as  an  anointed  of  God.  A  belief  in  the  resur- 
rection and  transfigured  life  of  Jesus  could  not  accomplish 
this,  any  more  than  it  led  the  first  disciples  to  deify  the 
master,  because  it  was  believed  that  Enoch,  Moses,  and 
Elias  also  had  been  taken  up  into  heaven ;  they  had  not 
on  that  account  ceased  to  have  a  human  character  in  the 
minds  of  believers.  In  this  we  can  clearly  discern  the 
influence  of  ideas  of  a  non-Jewish  origin,  the  ideas  of 
oriental  gnosis,  which  in  turn  had  come  into  contact  with 
Greek  philosophy  and  pagan  notions  of  divinity.  We 
have  here  no  case  of  ordinary  '  deification,'  for  which  a 
pious  imagination  might  supply  the  material.  Had  not 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  115 

Christianity  come  into  contact  with  gnosis  through 
'  Paul,'  had  it  remained  permanently  under  the  lead  of 
the  Jewish  mind,  the  monotheism  of  Israel  would  have 
warned  it  against  deifying  its  '  founder,'  just  as  in  the 
days  of  their  fathers  Moses,  the  founder  of  the  religion 
of  Israel,  was  saved  from  deification."1 

What  efforts  the  historical  critics  have  made  to  render 
more  or  less  intelligible  the  sudden  revulsion  of  Paul 
after  the  Damascus  vision !  But  neither  the  resources 
of  the  Hegelian  dialectic,  as  used  by  Baur  and,  in  a 
certain  sense,  Pfleiderer,  nor  those  of  modern  psychology, 
employed  by  Jiilicher,  Weiss,  and  others,  have  enabled 
the  prevailing  theory  to  give  even  plausibility  to  their 
idea  of  the  origin  of  the  Pauline  Christology,  and  to  fill 
with  psychological  and  historical  considerations  the  gap, 
the  reality  of  which  J.  Weiss  does  not  deny,2  between  the 
doctrine  of  Paul  and  that  of  the  so-called  disciples  of 
Jesus.  That  the  light  which  Paul  saw,  and  the  words 
he  heard,  led  him  to  condemn  the  whole  of  his  previous 
thought,  life,  faith,  and  hope,  and  converted  him  into  a 
"new  creature,"  is  hardly  credible.  Such  an  event 
would  be  so  "  unique  "  in  the  history  of  the  world  that 
any  man  who  admits  it  has  no  need  to  deny  other 
"  miracles  "  in  the  New  Testament,  or  regard  any  of  its 
statements  as  incredible.  It  has  recently  been  suggested 
that  the  historical  Jesus  himself  may  have  been  concerned 
in  the  conversion  ;  we  hear  of  the  "  strong  impression  " 
that  Jesus  must  have  made  on  Paul,  and  Kolbing3  and 
J.  Weiss  speak  of  "  a  spiritual  action  of  the  person  of 
Jesus" — some  even  suggest  a  meeting  somewhere  of  the 
two.  Such  a  theory  finds  no  support  whatever  in  Acts 
or  the  Pauline  Epistles ;  indeed,  as  I  said  before,  it  would 

1  Work  quoted,  p.  136.     As  to  the  impossibility  of  the  historical  Jesus 
being  deified  by  Paul  and  the  great  difference  between  this  sort  of  deifica- 
tion and  the  deification  of  other  outstanding  personalities,  such  as  the 
Emperor,  etc.,  see  Lublinski,  Das  werdende  Dogma,  p.  49. 

2  Paulus  und  Jesus,  pp.  3  and  72. 

8  Die  geistige  Einwirkung  der  Person  Jesu  auf  Paulus,  1906. 


116  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

make  the  apostle  untruthful,  as  he  says  repeatedly  and 
emphatically  that  he  received  his  gospel  only  by  an 
inner  revelation  (Gal.  i).  Theologians  also  see  in  the 
"  Damascus  miracle  "  another  proof  of  the  "  all-surpassing 
greatness  and  significance"  of  their  Jesus,  and  try  to 
realise  the  "  ineffaceable  impression "  which  Paul  must 
have  had  of  Jesus,  in  order  in  this  way  to  find  some 
justification  of  their  cult  of  Jesus.  The  event,  however, 
is  not  made  more  plausible  in  this  way,  because  the 
difficulty  precisely  is  how  it  was  possible  for  a  mono- 
theistic mind,  a  zealous  Jew,  to  apotheosise  a  man  who 
had  died  not  long  before,  not  a  personage  of  remote 
antiquity  such  as  Moses,  Elias,  or  Enoch.  And  the 
difficulty  is  not  removed  by  supposing  that  the  apostle 
had  somewhere  or  other  met  the  crucified  Jesus.  Paul 
had  never  known  Jesus  personally.  The  Christianity 
that  was  linked  with  Paul  in  its  later  development 
cannot  be  traced  to  a  personal  action  of  Jesus  on  the 
apostle.  That  is  unequivocally  shown  by  the  documents, 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  the  Epistles.  Any  man 
who  denies  this  is  reading  into  the  documents  something 
that  they  do  not  contain ;  in  fact,  they  say  just  the 
contrary.  Whoever  reads  this  into  them  is  simply 
introducing  into  the  documents  a  conception  of  Jesus 
which  he  has  obtained  elsewhere,  interpreting  them  in  a 
sense  that  they  do  not  justify,  and  cannot  complain  if  his 
opponents  regard  his  claim  to  be  "  methodical "  and 
"unprejudiced"  as  a  ridiculous  hallucination  and  pre- 
sumption. 

(c)  The  Spuriousness  of  the  Pauline  Epistles. — If  Paul 
refers  in  his  Epistles  to  an  historical  Jesus,  these  Epistles, 
bearing  his  name,  cannot  possibly  have  been  written  by 
the  apostle  who  was  changed  from  Saul  to  Paul  by  the 
Damascus  vision.  For  it  is  inconceivable  that  an  his- 
torical individual  should,  so  soon  after  his  death,  be 
elevated  by  the  apostle  to  the  dignity  of  a  second  God,  a 
co-worker  in  the  creation  and  redemption  of  the  world. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  117 

If  the  Epistles  really  were  written  by  Paul,  the  Jesus 
Christ  who  is  a  central  figure  in  them  cannot  be  an 
historical  personality.  The  way  in  which  the  supposed 
Jew  Paul  speaks  of  him  is  contrary  to  all  psychological 
and  historical  experience.  Either  the  Pauline  Epistles 
are  genuine,  and  in  that  case  Jesus  is  not  an  historical 
personality ;  or  lie  is  an  historical  personality,  and  in 
that  case  the  Pauline  Epistles  are  not  genuine,  but 
written  at  a  much  later  period.  This  later  period  would 
have  no  difficulty  in  raising  to  the  sphere  of  deity  a  man  of 
former  times  who  was  known  to  it  only  by  a  vague  tradi- 
tion. And  if  the  Epistles  do  not  come  from  Paul,  they 
belong  to  a  totally  different  circle  from  that  of  the  con- 
verted Jew,  and  are  rather,  as  Steck  says,  the  work  of  a 
whole  school  of  anti-legal  Gnostics  of  the  first  quarter  of 
the  second  century,  who  aimed  at  detaching  Christianity 
from  its  maternal  Jewish  stock,  and  making  it  an  inde- 
pendent religion ;  in  that  case  their  references  to  Jesus 
have  no  historical  value,  and  cannot  be  quoted  as  evidence 
of  the  historical  Jesus. 

Let  it  not  be  objected  that  the  Pauline  Epistles  bear 
unmistakably  the  stamp  of  Jewish  authorship,  and  in  their 
Rabbinical  cast  of  thought  and  argument  point  to  the 
Paul  of  Acts.  For,  apart  from  the  fact  that  this  would 
afford  no  proof  that  Paul  was  the  author,  since  the  Gnostic 
author  of  the  second  century  might  be  a  Pharisaic  Rabbi 
converted  into  an  apostle  by  some  "  tremendous  experi- 
ence," the  Jewish  character  of  the  author  of  the  Epistles 
and  his  relation  to  Kabbinism  are  by  no  means  so  certain 
as  believers  in  Paul  suggest ;  indeed,  here  again  it  seems 
as  if  most  of  them  know  nothing  of  the  Kabbinical  cast 
of  mind  and  method  of  argument  except  from  the  Epistles 
themselves.  Jewish  scholars,  who  can  appreciate  the 
point,  by  no  means  recognise  the  contents  of  the  Epistles 
as  of  their  own  spirit ;  they  emphatically  deny  that  their 
author  could  have  been  a  pupil  of  the  Rabbis.  There  is 
serious  ground  for  reflection  in  the  fact  that,  as  Kautzsch 


118  THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 

pointed  out  in  1869  and  Steck  has  confirmed  (p.  212), 
the  writer  of  the  Epistles  does  not  quote  the  Hebrew  text 
of  the  Scriptures,  but  the  Greek  Septuagint  translation, 
with  all  its  faults,  and  that  on  this  account  he  makes 
statements  which  a  glance  at  the  Hebrew  text  would 
have  shown  him  at  once  to  be  incorrect.1  That  would 
be  unintelligible  on  the  part  of  a  rigorous  Jew  and  pupil 
of  the  Eabbis,  because  the  translation  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment into  a  foreign  language  was  regarded  by  the  strict 
Jews  of  Palestine  as  a  sin  against  the  law,  a  profanation 
of  the  holy  word. 

Did  Paul  know  Hebrew  at  all  ?  The  question  seems 
to  be  absurd  if  the  author  of  the  Epistles  really  was  the 
pupil  of  Gamaliel  and  had  been  a  zealot  for  the  Mosaic 
law.  Yet  the  Epistles  give  no  trace  of  an  acquaintance 
with  Hebrew.  In  spite  of  the  assurance  of  the  writer 
that  he  was  born  a  Jew,  he  seems  to  be  Greek  in  every- 
thing. He  thinks  as  a  Greek,  speaks  as  a  Greek,  uses 
Greek  books ;  and  whatever  there  is  in  him  that  can  only 
be  explained — we  are  told — by  Judaism  is  much  closer, 
as  van  Manen  says,  to  the  Alexandrian  or  Hellenistic 
Judaism  of  Philo  and  Wisdom,  which  he  often  uses,  than 
to  the  ideas  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  need  by  no  means 
have  been  taken  from  the  Hebrew  Bible. 

Further,  this  supposed  pupil  of  the  Eabbis  interprets 
the  law  in  a  way  that,  as  we  are  told  by  Jewish  experts, 
is  anything  but  Rabbinical.  While  the  Eabbis  leave 
the  literal  meaning  of  the  scripture  untouched  even  in 
their  allegorical  interpretations,  the  apostle  is  extremely 
arbitrary  in  this  respect ;  he  turns  the  meaning  of  the 
words  inside  out,  and  changes  a  plain  meaning  into  the 
very  opposite,  as  Eschelbacher  shows  (among  others)  in 
the  case  of  Gal.  iv,  21  (p.  546).  The  author  of  the 


1  For  further  details  see  Eschelbacher,  "  Zur  Geschichte  und  Charak- 
teristik  der  Paulinischen  Briefe,"  in  the  Monatsschrift  filr  Geschichte  u. 
Wissenschaft  d.  Judentums,  51  Jahrg.,  Neue  Folge,  15  Jahrg.,  1907, 
pp.  411  and  542. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  119 

Pauline  Epistles  has  neither  an  accurate  knowledge  of 
the  text  of  the  scriptures  nor  an  interest  in,  or  under- 
standing of,  its  contents.  He  twists  the  plain  course  of 
the  text  to  his  purposes  at  the  moment,  and  grossly  offends 
against  both  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  passages  in  a 
way  that  no  man  who  had  passed  through  the  schools 
would  ever  venture  to  do.  "  The  interpretations  of  scrip- 
ture in  the  Pauline  Epistles,"  says  Eschelbacher,  "  cannot, 
either  in  substance  or  form,  be  brought  into  any  relation 
whatever  either  with  those  of  the  Palestinian  experts,  or 
with  those  of  the  Judaeo-Hellenistic  religious  philosophers, 
or  with  those  of  their  time  or  of  the  following  period. 
There  is  nothing  analogous  to  them  in  the  whole  of 
Jewish  literature.  This  is  found  only  in  the  Christian 
writings  of  the  second  century,  such  as  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  the  writings  of 
Justin,  etc."  (p.  550).  "  There  is  no  question  whatever  of 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  scripture,  or  scholarly  acquaint- 
ance with  what  was  taught  in  the  Jewish  schools  in 
Palestine  or  elsewhere,  in  the  Pauline  Epistles  "  (p.  668). 

When  we  survey  all  that  has  been  urged,  especially 
by  the  Dutch,  against  the  genuineness  of  the  Pauline 
Epistles,  particularly  the  contradiction  between  Acts  and 
the  Epistles,1  we  cannot  resist  the  impression  that  the 
obstinacy  with  which  historical  theology  clings  to  the 
Pauline  authorship,  and  declares  every  attack  on  it  to 
be  "  beneath  discussion,"  is  really  due  rather  to  a  very 
intelligible  prejudice  than  to  the  merits  of  the  case.  In 
the  eyes  of  these  theologians  Paul  is  the  weightiest 
witness  to  the  historicity  of  Jesus  on  whom  their 
"science"  can  rely,  hence  nothing  can  be  "scientific" 
which  tends  to  discredit  the  testimony  of  their  witness. 
We  who  are  convinced  that,  even  if  the  Pauline  Epistles 
were  genuine,  they  would  not  prove  the  existence  of  an 


1  See  Schlager,  Der  Paulus  der  Apg.  und  der  Paulus  der  Briefe,  in  the 
periodical  Die  Tat,  2  Jahrg.,  1910,  Heft  8. 


120 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL 


historical  Jesus,  and  that  they  probably  refer  to  another 
Jesus  altogether,  are  only  moderately  interested  in  the 
question  who  was  the  author  of  the  Epistles.  It  is 
immaterial  to  us  whether  there  was  one  author,  or 
whether,  as  the  Dutch  have  tried  to  show,  several 
co-operated  in  producing  them  ;  whether  they  are 
original,  or  are  merely  elaborations  of  older  letters ; 
whether  in  substance  they  go  back  to  an  apostle  Paul 
who  preached  the  gospel  to  the  Gentiles  about  the  middle 
of  the  first  century,  founded  communities,  and  was  to 
some  extent  opposed  to  the  ''original  apostles"  at 
Jerusalem,  or  whether  they  are  altogether  products  of 
the  first  quarter  of  the  second  century,  and  the  figure  of 
the  apostle  is  a  piece  of  fiction. 

It  is  possible  that,  as  Steck  and  van  Manen  believe, 
there  really  was  a  Paul,  a  man  who,  though  he  may  have 
taken  up  a  somewhat  exceptional  position  in  regard  to 
the  other  apostles,  can  scarcely  have  been  so  decisively 
opposed  to  them  as  the  Epistles  represent,  and  whose 
features  we  have  described,  somewhat  didactically,  in 
Acts.  This  Paul,  however,  was  in  that  case  "  a  Jew  by 
birth,  who  had  to  a  slight  extent  turned  his  back  on 
Judaism.  He  preaches  circumcision — that  is  to  say, 
fidelity  to  the  rites  and  customs  of  Judaism,  fidelity  to 
the  law  in  spite  of  his  acceptance  of  the  faith  and 
expectations  of  the  disciples  of  Jesus."1  There  was  thus 
no  direct  connection  between  him  and  the  author  of  the 
letters  which  bear  his  name  ;  they  show  a  quite  different 
spirit.  But  there  was  an  indirect  connection  in  the  sense 
that  Paulinism,  as  an  attempt  to  detach  Christianity  from 
Judaism,  making  it  a  world-religion,  and  at  the  same  time 
spiritualising  and  deepening  its  contents,  may  have  had  a 
grateful  recollection  of  the  man  who  first  gave  wide 
publicity  to  the  ideas  of  the  new  religion.  But  it  is 
equally  possible  that  the  name  of  Paul  is  only  a  general 

1  Van  Manen,  Rumerbrief,  p.  20G. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  PAUL  121 

title  for  a  number  of  letter-writers,  who  invented  the 
character  in  order  to  give  an  air  of  authority  to  a 
religious  system  that  went  beyond  the  original  Chris- 
tianity. It  would  not  be  possible  to  ascribe  so  peculiar 
and  novel  a  system  as  Paulinism  to  an  immediate  disciple 
of  "  the  Lord,"  to  whose  supposed  historical  personality 
the  other  followers  of  the  new  religion  appealed.  But 
some  sort  of  connection  with  the  "  historical  "  Jesus  was 
needed  in  order  to  displace  the  older  Christianity  with  its 
Judaic  leanings,  and  to  base  the  hostility  to  Judaism  on  a 
"  revelation  "  that  came  from  Jesus  himself.  Thus  arose 
the  character  of  the  once  pious  Jew  Paul,  who  rages 
against  the  Christians,  and  is  then  converted  by  a  vision, 
and,  as  a  zealot  against  the  law,  founds  a  purely  spiritual 
Christianity,  making  it  easier  by  his  own  example  for 
the  Jews  to  abandon  the  law. 

However  this  may  be,  the  Pauline  Epistles,  we  need 
not  repeat,  give  no  support  whatever  to  the  belief  in  an 
historical  Jesus.  This  also,  as  we  said,  puts  an  end  to 
religious  interest  in  the  historicity  of  Paul,  and  profane 
historians  and  philologists  may  be  left  in  peace  to  recon- 
struct, out  of  Acts  and  the  so-called  Epistles  of  Paul,  a 
picture  of  the  real  sequence  of  events  which  accompanied 
the  rise  of  Christianity. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


THE  evidential  value  of  profane  writers  and  the  Pauline 
Epistles  in  regard  to  the  existence  of  an  historical  Jesus 
has  proved  illusory.  The  genuineness  of  the  Pauline 
Epistles  is  not  at  all  established.  Even  if,  however, 
they  were  really  written  by  the  apostle  in  the  fifties  and 
sixties  of  the  first  century,  they  would  give  no  testimony 
to  the  historical  human  being  Jesus.  That  the  apostle 
has  such  a  person  in  mind,  and  not  a  heavenly  being,  a 
saviour-god  Jesus,  who  has  become  man,  cannot  be 
deduced  from  the  Epistles,  but  is  read  into  them,  so 
that  the  existence  of  an  historical  Jesus  is  merely 
assumed.  Now,  this  assumption  is  based  on  the  gospels, 
and,  therefore,  the  Pauline  Epistles  cannot  in  their  turn 
serve  to  prove  the  existence  of  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels. 

There  is  no  other  source  of  the  belief  in  an  historical 
Jesus  but  the  gospels.  The  credibility  of  the  historical 
documents  of  Christianity  finds  no  support  outside  them- 
selves. For  an  historian  that  is  a  lamentable  situation. 
Even  Weiss  feels  that  he  must  make  some  excuse  in 
quoting  the  gospels  as  witnesses,  as  sceptics  may  object 
that  a  witness  can  hardly  testify  in  his  own  favour.  He 
consoles  himself  by  pointing  to  the  grandeur  and  beauty 
of  the  gospels  as  some  assurance  of  their  truth,  for- 
getting that  truth  only  vindicates  itself,  and  not  its 
authors.  However  much  we  may  esteem  the  contents 
of  the  gospels,  this  appreciation  does  not  throw  the 
least  light  on  the  historicity  of  the  statements  made  in 
them.  However  much  the  figure  of  Jesus,  as  it  is  set 
forth  in  the  acts  and  words  of  the  gospel  narrative,  may 

122 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  123 

move  and  enchain  the  sentiments  of  the  reader,  it  cannot 
be  deduced  from  these  sentiments  that  an  historical 
personality  was  the  model  of  the  character.  Otherwise 
we  should  have  to  describe  Homer's  heroes,  Shakespeare's 
Hamlet,  and  Goethe's  Faust  as  historical  personalities 
because  they  are  so  vividly  portrayed,  and  make  such  a 
"  strong  impression  "  on  sensitive  souls.  The  attempt  to 
prove  the  historicity  of  Jesus  is  hopeless  if  there  are  no 
other  historical  sources  for  it  than  the  gospels,  even  if  the 
gospel  tradition  is  so  close  to  the  historical  facts  that  we 
may  be  dealing  with  historical  reminiscences.  We  see, 
therefore,  how  important  it  is  for  those  who  maintain  the 
historicity  of  Jesus  to  have  other  witnesses  besides  the 
gospels,  and  we  understand  the  frantic  efforts  of  theo- 
logical "  historians  "  to  retain  the  evidence  of  profane 
historians  and  of  Paul,  however  slender  and  disputable 
it  be.  The  importance  of  the  inquiry  into  the  evangelical 
documents  is  thus  set  in  its  true  light.  It  is  not  merely  a 
question  of  establishing  the  historical  credibility  of  the 
gospel  narratives  in  detail,  but  of  securing  in  general  a 
firm  historical  ground  in  which  tradition  may  anchor. 
To  obtain  some  assurance  of  the  historical  character  of 
the  gospels  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death  to  the  historical 
faith  of  the  Christian.  Hence  it  is  that  every  straw  is 
eagerly  welcomed,  and  in  this  matter  the  theological 
"  historians "  betray  a  contentedness  and  liberality  that 
would  not  be  tolerated  in  any  branch  of  profane  history. 


1.— THE  SOUECES  OF  THE  GOSPELS. 

Such  a  straw,  in  regard  to  the  belief  in  the  historicity 
of  the  gospels,  is  the  often-quoted  testimony  of  Papias.  It 
is,  as  is  known,  one  of  the  "  safest "  (though  by  no  means 
unquestioned)  results  of  the  modern  discussion  of  the  life 
of  Jesus  that  the  gospel  of  Mark  is  the  oldest  of  the 
surviving  four.  As  compared  with  the  other  gospels,  it 
shows  the  "greatest  freshness"  and  "vividness,"  the 


124  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

most  impressive  "  picturesqueness,"  and  such  an  abun- 
dance of  trivial  details  that  it  gives  one  the  impression  of 
"  directly  suggesting  the  narrative  of  an  eye-witness." 
It  is,  therefore,  a  happy  coincidence,  theologians  assure 
us,1  that  Papias,  bishop  of  Hierapolis  about  the  year  150, 
makes  a  statement  about  Mark,  the  author  of  the  gospel, 
which  admirably  agrees  with  that  impression.  He  says : 
"  Mark  was  Peter's  interpreter,  and  he  carefully  wrote 
down  all  that  he  remembered.  He  did  not,  however, 
adhere  to  the  order  followed  by  Christ  in  his  discourses 
and  actions.  He  had  himself  never  heard  the  Lord  or 
been  among  his  followers.  But  he  afterwards  met  Peter, 
as  I  said,  and  Peter  instructed  his  hearers  as  opportunity 
offered,  though  he  did  not  give  the  words  of  the  Lord  in 
their  proper  order.  Hence  Mark  did  no  wrong  in  writing 
things  as  they  were  in  his  memory.  He  was  concerned 
only  to  omit  nothing  that  he  had  heard,  or  to  admit  no 
untruth  in  his  work." 

In  this  way  the  origin  of  the  oldest  gospel  seems  to  go 
back  very  near  to  the  time  of  Jesus,  and  its  historical 
character  seems  to  be  accredited.  The  only  question  is 
how  far  we  can  rely  on  the  statement  of  the  Bishop  of 
Hierapolis.  Now  Papias  appeals  to  the  priest  John 
[Presbyter  Johannes]  as  his  authority.  Who  is  the 
priest  John,  and  whence  did  he  obtain  his  knowledge  ? 
According  to  Jerome  and  Irenaeus,  he  was  identical  with 
John  the  Evangelist.  Papias  himself,  however,  denies 
this  when  he  assures  us  that  he  himself  never  saw  or 
heard  the  holy  apostles,  but  owed  his  knowledge  to  their 
friends,  the  elders.  Hence  Papias  received  his  informa- 
tion as  to  the  origin  of  the  gospel  from  John,  John  from 
Mark,  and  Mark  received  his  information  about  Jesus 
from  Peter,  who  in  turn  only  said  what  he  knew  about 
Jesus.  Seeing  that,  in  addition,  the  writings  of  Papias 
have  been  lost,  and  we  know  of  him  only  from  Eusebius 

1  Wernle,  Die  synoptische  Frage,  1899,  p.  204. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  125 

(of  the  fourth  century),  that  is  clearly  too  complicated  a 
piece  of  evidence  to  merit  an  unreserved  acceptance.  We 
do  not,  moreover,  learn  from  Papias  whether  Peter 
gathered  from  his  own  intercourse  with  Jesus  what  he 
told  to  Mark,  or,  if  he  did  not,  whence  this  original 
witness  derived  his  knowledge  of  the  Saviour.  It  does 
not  follow  from  the  words  of  Papias  that  Peter  was  a 
personal  disciple  of  Jesus,  however  emphatically  Eusebius 
may  regard  him  as  such,  and  however  Papias  may  have 
thought  so.  The  good  bishop  was  not  at  all  the  kind  of 
man  to  have  a  clear  idea  of  such  a  thing.  According  to 
Eusebius  and  Irenaeus,  he  was  very  "  narrow-minded," 
and  the  other  things  which  he  gathered  from  the  elders 
in  the  way  of  parables  and  teachings  of  Jesus  and  deeds 
of  the  apostles,  in  order  to  have  as  much  information  as 
possible  about  Jesus  and  his  followers,  are  so  disputable 
and  miraculous  that  even  Eusebius  is  obliged  to  relegate 
them  to  the  province  of  fable.1 

There  is  another  matter  that  we  learn  in  regard  to  the 
bishop  from  Eusebius  (ii,  15),  and  this  also  is  supposed 
to  help  to  prove  the  connection  of  the  gospel  of  Mark 
with  the  historical  Jesus.  Papias  is  reported  as  saying 
that,  when  Peter  came  to  Borne  and  overcame  the 
wizard  Simon  in  their  conflict,  his  hearers  turned  to 
Mark,  who  accompanied  Peter,  in  their  zeal  for  the 
gospel,  and  begged  him  to  let  them  have  a  written 
memorial  of  the  teaching  that  had  been  orally  delivered 
to  them,  and  he  did  so.  The  apostle,  he  says,  learned 
this  by  a  revelation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  (!),  rejoiced  at 
their  zeal,  and  directed  that  the  writing  should  be  used 
in  the  churches.  "  Why,"  asks  Lublinsky,  "  had  Peter 
to  learn  from  the  Holy  Spirit  that  his  constant  companion 
had  written  a  gospel,  instead  of  from  Mark  himself,  who 
ought  first  to  have  asked  his  master  to  look  over  so 
sacred  and  important  a  work  ?  It  would  be  impossible, 

1  Eccl.  Hist.,  iii,  40. 


126  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

moreover,  for  the  apostle  to  confirm  and  commend  a 
work  which  was  not  written  in  the  proper  order  of  the 
Saviour's  life.  Such  carelessness  is  even  more  difficult 
to  believe  when  we  reflect  that  the  Jews  are  said  to 
have  already  taken  up  an  attitude  of  hostility  to  the 
Christians,  and  would  certainly  fasten  at  once  upon 
any  untruth  or  inaccuracy  on  the  Christian  side. 
There  were  still  too  many  witnesses  of  events  alive 
for  any  one  to  dare  even  to  correct  the  matter  a  little  " 
(p.  62). 

There  is,  in  fact,  much  to  be  said  for  Lublinski's 
conjecture  that  there  is  question  of  a  gospel  belonging  to 
the  first  half  of  the  second  century,  to  which  it  was 
sought  to  give  some  canonical  prestige  by  tracing  it  to 
Peter  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  that  the  story  of  Peter's 
pedagogical  activity  was  invented  to  cover  the  discon- 
nectedness of  its  material.  To  trace  it  directly  to  the 
apostle,  as  the  first  gospel  was  ascribed  to  Matthew  and 
the  fourth  to  John,  was  impossible  for  some  reason.  It 
was,  therefore,  inscribed  with  the  name  of  Mark,  of 
whom  it  was  said  in  the  so-called  first  Epistle  of  Peter : 
"  The  Church  that  is  at  Babylon  saluteth  you,  and  so  doth 
Marcus  my  son,"  just  as  the  third  was  ascribed  to  the 
physician  Luke,  and  thus  brought  into  relation  with  the 
apostle  Paul.1 

In  any  case,  it  is  impossible  to  prove  the  connection  of 
the  gospels  with  the  historical  Jesus  from  these  two  refer- 
ences of  Papias,  as  they  are  preserved  by  Eusebius.  Even  if 
the  notice  in  Papias  were  better  accredited  than  it  is,  his  state- 
ment need  not  have  arisen  independently  of  the  literary 
character  of  the  gospel  of  Mark.  It  is  said  to  agree  per- 
fectly with  that  character.  But  we  do  not  know  whether 
the  gospel  was  not  precisely  ascribed  to  Mark,  and  thus 
connected  with  Peter,  because  at  the  time  of  its  appear- 
ance this  accidentally  concordant  character  of  the  gospel 

1  See   Gfrorer,  Die  heilige  Sage,  I,  3-23,  1838 ;  also  Liitzelberger,  Die 
kirkliche  Tradition  ilber  den  Apostel  Johannes,  1842,  pp.  76-93. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  127 

impressed  its  readers,  if  it  had  not  been  expressly  written 
in  the  Petrine  sense. 

Besides  the  reference  to  the  origin  of  the  gospel  of 
Mark,  we  have  in  Eusebius  also  one  to  the  origin  of  the 
gospel  of  Matthew ;  a  reference  to  which  the  greatest 
importance  is  attached  by  historical  theology,  and  of 
which  the  author  is  again  Papias.  "  Matthew,"  he  said, 
"  wrote  the  words  of  the  Lord  in  Hebrew,  and  others 
translated  them  as  well  as  they  could"  (iii,  40).  Theo- 
logians at  once  assume  that  these  "  words  of  the  Lord  " 
are  sayings  of  the  historical  Jesus  ;  and  it  is  possible  that 
Papias  meant  this,  though  he  does  not  mention  the  name 
Jesus,  and  we  have  in  early  Christian  literature  (such  as 
the  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles  and  the  Epistle  of 
James)  words  of  the  Lord  which  are  not  quoted  as  words 
of  Jesus,  but  are  clearly  sayings  of  earlier  prophetic 
teachers,  the  so-called  apostles.  The  expression  "  words 
of  the  Lord "  often  means  the  sayings  of  prominent 
religious  personalities  which  were  attributed  to  the  direct 
influence  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  even  quotations  from  the 
Old  Testament  are  called  "  words  of  the  Lord  " — that  is 
to  say,  of  the  God  of  Israel.1  Moreover,  the  identity  of 
the  Matthew  who  is  said  by  Papias  to  have  written  the 
words  of  the  Lord  with  the  evangelist  Matthew  is  not 
certain,  as  the  latter  drew  from  Greek  sources,  and  the 
tax-gatherer  whom  Jesus  calls  (Mark  ii,  14),  and  in 
whom  we  are  supposed  to  have  the  author  of  the  gospel, 
was  not  named  Matthew,  but  Levi,  son  of  Alphaeus,  and 
seems  not  to  have  been  identified  with  the  apostle 
Matthew  until  a  later  period.2  That  is  what  theologians 
call  "  a  sound  tradition  "  !  We  cannot  avoid  the  sus- 
picion that  these  supposed  sayings  of  Jesus,  the  "  words 
of  the  Lord  "  of  Papias,  which  Matthew  is  said  to  have 
collected,  were  not  the  words  of  a  single  definite  individual 

1  Matt,  x,  20;  Mark  xiii,  11.     Also  compare  Revelation  xii,  10:  "The 
witness  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy." 

2  Wernle,  work  quoted,  p.  229. 


128 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


or  an  historical  Jesus,  but  were  merely  placed  in  his 
mouth  afterwards.1  In  that  case  this  second  passage  of 
Papias  referring  to  Matthew  is  just  as  incapable  of 
showing  an  historical  connection  of  the  gospels  with  the 
life  of  an  historical  Jesus.  We  learn  nothing  from  it 
except  that  there  were  "  words  of  the  Lord "  in 
the  second  century  in  several  different  versions,  and 
that  these  differences  were  understood  to  be  due  to 
different  translations  of  a  common  source,  the  author 
of  which  was  believed  to  have  been  a  certain  Matthew, 
whose  name  appeared  among  the  so-called  disciples  of 
Jesus. 

It  is  on  this  "  sound  tradition  "  that  modern  critical 
theologians  base  their  hypothesis  of  two  sources.  It 
supposes  that  the  gospel  of  Mark,  or  an  earlier  version 
of  it,  the  so-called  "Primitive  Mark,"  is  one  source  of 
our  three  Synoptic  gospels;  it  describes  the  actions  of 
Jesus.  The  other  source  is  the  discourses  or  sayings- 
source,  the  document  which  Papias  ascribes  to  Matthew, 
the  so-called  "  Primitive  Matthew."  Our  actual  Matthew 
and  Luke  have  independently  taken  their  account  of  the 
actions  of  Jesus  from  the  primitive  gospel  of  Mark,  and 
have  taken  the  words  of  Jesus  from  the  other  source,  and 
combined  the  two.  Each  of  them,  however,  has  his 
"  private  property,"  something  that  is  not  found  in  the 
words-source  or  the  primitive  Mark,  but  is  probably  due 
to  oral  tradition.  In  working  out  this  hypothesis  theo- 
logians differ  considerably  from  each  other.  Some  say 
that  there  were  stories  of  the  life  of  Jesus  also  in  the 
primitive  Matthew  and  discourses  of  Jesus  in  the 
primitive  Mark.  Others  think  that  besides  the  primitive 
Matthew  and  Mark  there  was  a  primitive  form  of  Luke ; 
according  to  Arnold  Meyer,  this  may  have  been  older  than 
the  actual  Mark,  and  contained,  besides  the  stories  of  the 
birth  and  childhood  of  Jesus,  the  parables  and  stories 


1  Steudel,    Wir    Oelehrten  vom 
Christusmythe ,  p.  56. 


Fach!    p.    37  ;    Im    Kampf   um    die 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  129 

which  tended  to  glorify  poverty  and  depreciate  wealth. 
We  thus  get  an  "Ebionite  Gospel,"  or  gospel  of  "the 
Poor,"  which  is  believed  to  have  been  especially  used  by 
Luke.  Recently,  if  we  may  so  interpret  a  passage  in 
Weiss  (p.  155),  the  gospel  of  John,  which  has  been 
almost  entirely  excluded  from  the  discussion  of  the  sources 
of  the  life  of  Jesus  for  more  than  half  a  century,  seems 
to  be  returning  to  the  group  of  sources.  That  would  be 
another  instance  that  "  everything  happens  over  again," 
as  Nietzsche  said.  The  game  of  combining  the  various 
possibilities  seems  to  be  an  essential  part  of  the  theolo- 
gical discussion  of  the  sources.  At  all  events,  the  con- 
tinued work  of  theologians  has  so  complicated  the 
problem  of  the  sources  of  the  life  of  Jesus  that  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  speak  any  longer  of  a  "  two-sources 
hypothesis,"  and  speak  freely  of  it. 

Whatever  may  be  said  from  the  philological  point  of 
view  as  to  the  value  of  the  two-sources  hypothesis,  of 
which  German  critical  theologians  are  so  proud,  it  has,  as 
the  above  considerations  have  shown,  no  value  as  far  as  the 
historicity  of  Jesus  is  concerned.  It  would  not  have 
even  if  the  exact  contents  of  the  sources  were  known  to 
us,  as  Weinel  seems  to  think,  and  if  the  reconstruction 
of  the  sources  in  Harnack's  German  translation,  which 
is  by  no  means  generally  admitted,  were  something  more 
than  a  mere  hypothetical  attempt,  and  Wernle's  corre- 
sponding analyses  were  not  sheer  and  uncertain  con- 
jectures. No  matter  how  much  the  method  of  the 
historical  theologians  is  improved  in  the  future,  it  can  do 
no  more.  That  in  the  gospels  we  really  have  to  do  with 
the  "  tradition  of  a  personality" — namely,  the  historical 
Jesus — cannot  be  shown  even  by  the  acutest  philological 
criticism  and  the  most  perfect  command  of  technical 
apparatus.  The  attempt  of  historical  theologians  to 
reach  the  historical  nucleus  of  the  gospels  by  purely 
philological  means  is  hopeless,  and  must  remain  hopeless, 
because  the  gospel  tradition  floats  in  the  air  ;  the  belief 

K 


130  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

in  its  historical  value  is  not  confirmed  by  a  single  external 
witness  who  has  the  least  claim  to  confidence. 


2.— THE  WITNESS  OF  TEADITION. 

On  what  general  ground  do  theologians  affirm  that  the 
gospels  contain  history  ?  On  no  other  ground  than  that 
such  is  the  general  view.  "  We  are  asked,"  Weinel 
exclaims,  "  to  prove  that  Jesus  was  an  historical 
personage ;  in  other  words,  we  are  to  sacrifice  an 
historical  tradition  of  centuries,  against  which  as  a 

whole not  a  single  objection  was  brought  until 

Bruno  Bauer  in  1841,  and  Albert  Kalthoff  in  1902  " 
(p.  10).  He  says  that  it  is  a  "depreciation  of  tradition" 
to  call  in  question  the  historicity  of  the  gospel  narratives 
(p.  10).  Weinel  seems  never  to  have  heard  of  the 
Gnostics,  whose  resistance  to  the  growing  tradition  of  an 
historical  Jesus  gave  so  much  trouble  to  the  Church  in 
the  second  century.  He  does  not  seem  to  know  that  it 
was  not  Bruno  Bauer  and  Kalthoff  who  first  questioned 
or  denied  the  historicity  of  Jesus,  but  philosophers  who 
lived  a  hundred  years  before  Bauer,  Bolingbroke  and 
the  English  Deists.  We  have  heard  of  the  saying  of 
Pope  Leo  X.  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century 
about  the  "  fairy-tale  of  Christ."  Even  so  enlightened 
a  ruler  as  Frederick  the  Great  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  entirely  convinced  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus.  He 
speaks  of  "the  comedy"  of  the  life  and  death  and 
ascension  of  Christ,  and  says :  "If  the  Church  can  err  in 
regard  to  facts,  I  see  reason  to  doubt  if  there  is  a 
Scripture  and  a  Jesus  Christ."1  Has  Weinel  never 
heard  of  Dupuis  and  Volney,  who  advanced  an  astral- 
myth  explanation  of  the  gospel  "  history  "  in  the  last 
decade  of  the  eighteenth  century  ? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  existence  of  Jesus  has  been 
assailed  from  the  moment  when  historical  inquiry  began 

1  Friedrichs  des  Or.  GedanJcen  Uber  Religion,  1893,  pp.  87  and  92. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  131 

to  oppose  itself  to  the  prevailing  ecclesiastical  ways  of 
thinking — that  is  to  say,  from  the  eighteenth  century. 
That  is  quite  natural,  as  no  one  had  hitherto  believed  in 
a  purely  historical  Jesus,  and  the  dogmatic  Christ  of 
tradition  gave  little  occasion  to  contest  his  historical 
reality;  he  might  be  accepted  or  rejected,  but  not  on 
historical  grounds.  "  Precisely  because  liberal  theology 
has,"  says  Ernst  Krieck,  "  constructed  its  Jesus  in 
opposition  to  the  whole  of  Christian  tradition,  we  have 
a  right  to  ask  it  for  proof ;  precisely  because,  as  Weinel 
admits  (p.  22),  documents  are  wanting  in  regard  to  their 
Jesus  such  as  are  generally  used  to  prove  the  reality  of 
historical  personages,  the  demand  for  proof  is  not  so  absurd 
as  Weinel  represents  it  to  be."1 

It  is  a  complete  perversion  of  the  facts  when  Weinel 
and  his  colleagues  claim  that  tradition  is  on  their  side. 
The  tradition  of  the  first  eighteen  centuries  of  Christianity 
knows  only  a  god-man,  not  the  man  Christ.  Lublinski 
rightly  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  "  in  the  early 
centuries  the  blood  of  Christian  martyrs  was  chiefly  shed 
because  the  unyielding  and  angry  primitive  Christians 
regarded  the  cult  of  the  emperors  as  the  horror  of 
horrors,  since  it  meant  adoring  a  man.  They,  however, 
worshipped  their  Christ  and  died  for  him  because  they 
considered  him,  not  a  man,  but  a  god-man.  Who  is 
nearer  to  tradition,  the  one  who  makes  an  earthly  man 
of  Jesus,  or  the  one  who  is  content  to  say  that  he  was 
from  the  start  a  mythical  being,  a  symbol — in  a  word,  the 
God-man?  "  It  is  precisely  one  of  the  objections  raised 
by  orthodox  against  liberal  Christians  that  they  are  in 
opposition  to  the  whole  of  Christian  tradition  !  What 
early  Christian  writings  are  there,  apart  from  the  gospels, 
that  show  the  existence  of  an  historical  Jesus  ?  There 
is  not  one  single  early  Christian  document  that  speaks, 
not  of  the  god-man  Jesus  Christ,  but  unequivocally  of 

1  Die  neueste  Orthodoxie  u.  d.  Christusproblem,  p.  47. 

2  Das  werdende  Dogma,  p.  82. 


132  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

the  mere  man  Jesus  which  modern  liberal  theology 
conceives  him  to  have  been.  Weinel  appeals  to  the 
apocryphal  gospels,  the  writings  of  the  "  apostolic 
fathers,"  the  apologists  of  the  second  century  (Justin,  for 
instance) ;  they  all  show  just  the  contrary  of  what  he 
states  (p.  103).  It  is  precisely  one  of  the  strongest 
arguments  of  those  who  deny  the  historicity  of  Jesus 
that  neither  Acts  nor  Revelation  nor  the  Epistles,  nor 
the  apologists,  etc.,  relate  the  slenderest  fact  that  can 
confidently  be  referred  to  a  purely  historical  Jesus.  As 
regards  the  apologists,  in  particular,  they  know,  says  Pro- 
fessor W.  B.  Smith  in  his  Ecce  Dens,  "  nothing  whatever 
about  the  miraculous  pure  human  life  in  Galilee  and  Judaea. 
Not  a  single  event  is  mentioned,  not  a  single  proof,  not 
a  single  explanation,  or  exhortation,  or  counsel — not  a 
single  motive  have  they  drawn  from  the  incomparable 
life  which  is  supposed  to  have  fascinated  the  disciples 
and  even  the  bloodthirsty  Saul.  The  modern  preacher, 
even  the  modern  critic,  at  a  distance  of  1900  years,  fills 
all  the  vessels  of  his  discourse  at  this  pure  and  inex- 
haustible source  of  the  personality  and  life  of  Jesus.  But 
the  early  apologists,  who  lived  under  the  Antonines  and 
before  the  settlement  of  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament, 
know  nothing  of  this  source  in  their  debates  with  kings 
and  emperors,  with  philosophers  and  representatives  of 
their  own  group.  They  do  not  draw  a  single  drop  of  the 
water ;  they  rarely  mention  it,  even  remotely.  It  would 
almost  seem  that,  if  it  existed  at  all,  it  was  confined  to 
an  esoteric,  not  exoteric,  source.  We  do,  it  is  true,  find 
a  few  scanty  references  to  certain  teachings  which  are 
'  known,'  but  they  are  all  of  a  more  or  less  metempirical 
character,  such  as  the  mystery  in  1  Tim.  iii,  16.  We 
find  no  knowledge  of  such  a  human  life  as  that  which 
modern  and  orthodox  theologians  make  the  basis  of  their 
New  Testament  theory." 

To  base  the  historicity  of  Jesus  on  tradition  is  merely 
to   make   tradition   the    decisive   factor   in  the  question 


;i 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  133 

because  it  is  tradition.  "History,"  says  Weinel  (p.  22), 
"  depends  on  tradition."  But  when  tradition  is  so  isolated 
as  it  is  in  the  case  of  the  gospels,  we  have  every  right  to 
ask  whether  there  are  any  historical  facts  whatever  at  the 
base  of  it.  Even  Weinel  admits  that  the  historicity  of  a 
tradition  cannot  be  shown  by  "  some  simple  logic."  Such 
proof  can  only  be  given  "  by  means  of  documents."  There 
are,  however,  none  for  the  life  of  Jesus.  It  has  been  said 
that  Socrates  and  Plato  might  be  struck  out  of  history 
just  as  easily  as  Jesus,  since  there  are  spurious  works 
among  those  that  bear  the  name  of  Plato,  and  it  is 
impossible  to  prove  that  the  others  are  genuine.  But  we 
are  assured  of  the  existence  of  Socrates,  not  only  by 
Plato  and  Xenophon,  but  by  the  comedian  Aristophanes, 
and  there  is  not  the  slightest  ground  to  doubt  his  his- 
torical existence.  And  the  historical  existence  of  Plato 
is  accredited,  not  merely  by  the  works  ascribed  to  him,  but 
in  other  ways,  as  well  as  that  of  any  personality  in  history. 
We  should  not  even  have  ground  to  doubt  his  historicity 
if  all  the  works  of  the  philosopher  were  spurious.  As  to 
the  existence  of  Luther,  Frederick  the  Great,  Goethe,  or 
Bismarck,  we  have  not  only  documents  from  their  own 
hand,  the  genuineness  of  which  is  not  open  to  question, 
but  masses  of  evidence  on  the  part  of  contemporaries.1 
All  this  is  wanting  in  the  case  of  Jesus.  He  has  not  left 
behind  a  single  line.  He  has,  as  Jiilicher  says,  "  written 
in  the  sand,"  and  there  is  not  a  single  reliable  document  to 
enable  us  to  trust  the  gospels,  from  which  alone  we  learn 
something  about  his  life.  It  is,  therefore,  just  as  permis- 
sible to  doubt  as  to  admit  the  existence  of  such  a  person  ; 
and  it  is  an  unhappy  indication  of  the  superficiality  and 
loose  thinking  of  our  time  that  even  leaders  of  science  have 
not  hesitated  to  bring  into  the  field  to  prove  the  historicity 
of  Jesus  this  foolish  reference  to  historical  personalities.2 

1  See  Jiilicher,  p.  14. 

2  Steudel,   Wir  Gelehrten  vom  Fach,  p.  6;    Lublinski,  Das  werdende 
Dogma,  p.  47. 


134  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

3.— THE  METHODS  OF  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM. 

(a)  The  Methodical  Principles  of  Theological  History. — 
From  what  we  have  seen  we  perceive  that  critics  are  con- 
vinced of  the  historicity  of  the  gospels  a  priori,  before 
investigating  the  subject.  All  they  have  to  do,  therefore, 
is  to  seek  the  "historical  nucleus  "  in  tradition.  How  is 
that  done  ?  "  The  Christian  element,"  says  Weinel, 
"  must  be  stripped  from  the  figure  of  Jesus  before  he  can 
be  discovered.  But  this  means  only  the  Christian  element 
in  a  certain  sense.  Jesus  was  not  a  Jew,  but  something 
new ;  the  Christian  element  must  be  removed  from  him 
in  the  sense  of  thoughts,  ideas,  and  tendencies  which  could 
only  be  entertained  by  a  later  community"  (p.  28).  Or,  as 
we  read  in  another  passage:  "  The  only  standard  by  which 
the  historical  critic  can  discriminate  between  the  genuine 
and  the  spurious  is  to  set  aside  as  spurious  those  features 
of  tradition  which  could  not  be  due  to  the  interest  of  Jesus, 
but  only  to  the  interest  of  the  community  "  (p.  30). 

Notice  how  much  is  assumed  in  all  this  :  that  Jesus 
was  an  historical  personage,  that  he  was  not  a  Jew,  that 
he  was  "  something  new,"  and,  especially — "  the  interest 
of  Jesus."  How  is  it  that  Weinel  knows  the  interest  of 
Jesus  so  well  before  beginning  his  inquiry  that  he  thinks 
he  can  determine  by  this  test  what  is  spurious  in  tradition 
and  what  is  not  ?  Let  us  be  candid.  Is  it  not  a  question 
of  the  "  interest  "  of  historical  theology  and  the  Church 
rather  than  of  Jesus?  The  gospels,  it  seems,  are  to  be 
understood  from  "  the  soul  of  Jesus,"  not  from  the  soul 
of  their  authors !  I  should  have  thought  that  in  a  strict 
historical  inquiry  the  "  interest  "  and  the  "  soul  "  of  Jesus 
could  only  be  gathered  in  the  course  of  the  inquiry.  The 
theological  "  historian,"  however,  assumes  from  the  start 
precisely  what  he  is  supposed  to  prove  and  deduce — the 
existence  and  the  knowledge  of  the  innermost  nature  of 
the  man  Jesus.  Not  only  does  Weinel  do  this,  but 
Clemen  also  formulates,  for  use  in  the  religious-historical 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  135 

interpretation  of  the  New  Testament,  the  famous  "methodo- 
logical principle  " — that  a  religious-historical  interpretation 
is  impossible  when  it  leads  to  untenable  consequences 
(namely,  the  denial  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus  or  of  the 
genuineness  of  the  Pauline  Epistles)  or  starts  from  such 
premises.1  J.  Weiss  says  this  even  more  plainly  when  he 
acknowledges  that  in  all  his  inquiries  he  starts  with  the 
assumption  "  that  the  gospel  story  in  general  has  an 
historical  root,  that  it  has  grown  out  of  the  soil  of  the 
life  of  Jesus,  goes  back  to  eye-witnesses  of  his  life,  and 
comes  so  near  to  him  that  we  may  count  upon  historical 
reminiscences"  (p.  125).  It  is  little  wonder  that  they 
find  themselves  "  scientifically  "  compelled  to  cling  to  the 
historicity  of  Jesus,  and  regard  the  so-called  historical 
method  which  they  use  as  the  only  correct  method, 
because  it  seems  to  establish  this  historicity.  The  truth 
is  that  it  is  not  a  result,  but  a  presupposition  of  their 
method ;  the  method  is  arranged  in  advance  so  as  to 
confirm  the  presupposition,  and  it  is  not  in  virtue  of  the 
method  that  the  inquiry  ends  in  a  conviction  of  the 
existence  of  a  definite  Jesus,  but  because  this  was  the 
goal  kept  in  mind  from  the  start. 

This,  however,  is  not  all  that  we  have  to  say  in  regard 
to  the  theological  method  of  inquiring  into  the  historicity 
of  Jesus.  There  is  a  further  principle,  that  all  that 
seems  possible  to  the  theological  critic  in  the  gospel 
narratives  may  at  once  be  set  down  as  actual.  Thus 
Weinel  would  regard  a  tradition  as  valid  as  long  as  "it  is 
not  clearly  seen  to  be  impossible."  But  are  there  not 
plenty  of  things  in  traditions  which  are  possible,  yet  may 
not  in  the  least  be  actual  ?  The  story  of  Tell  is  possible, 
the  story  of  the  seven  kings  of  Rome,  or  of  Semiramis  or 
Sardanapalus ;  and  as  long  as  independent  documents  did 
not  exist,  they  were  held  to  be  real  histories.  Indeed,  on 
this  criterion  of  "  possibility "  we  might  prove  that 

1  Die  religionsgescliichtl.  ErUarung  des  N.  T.,  1909,  p.  10. 


136  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

Hercules  was  an  historical  personage,  and  endeavour  to 
extract  an  "  historical  nucleus  "  out  of  the  shell  of  legend. 
Why  may  there  not  have  been  a  man  of  that  name  who 
strangled  a  lion,  dragged  a  wild  boar,  caught  a  hind  alive, 
slew  a  dangerous  serpent,  cleaned  out  a  stable,  and 
performed  other  heroic  deeds,  finally  sacrificing  himself 
on  the  pyre  ?  That  the  hydra  had  more  than  one  head, 
and  that  when  one  was  cut  off  two  new  ones  grew  in  its 
place,  is,  of  course,  due  to  later  imagination  ;  possibly  it 
originated  in  a  "  vision  "  on  the  part  of  Hercules.  Do  we 
not  know  that  he  was  a  heavy  drinker  ?  Well,  in  a  state 
of  intoxication  things  are  often  seen  doubled,  or  even 
trebled.  Thus  it  would  be  possible  to  give  an  "  historical  " 
interpretation  of  the  myth  of  Hercules  on  the  above 
principle.  The  principle,  however,  overlooks  the  fact 
that,  though  everything  that  is  actual  is  at  the  same  time 
possible,  the  laws  of  logic  forbid  us  to  draw  an  inference 
in  the  opposite  direction,  from  possibility  to  actuality. 
Yet  it  is  simply  on  such  a  deduction,  apart  from  con- 
siderations of  "  the  interest  of  Jesus,"  that  all  theological 
constructions  of  the  life  of  Jesus  are  based.  The  stories 
in  the  gospels  are  first  examined  to  see  if  they  are 
possible,  and  they  are  then  treated  as  historical  realities, 
the  historicity  of  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  proved 
by  showing  that  they  are  possible. 

(b)  The  Method  of  J.  Weiss. — J.  Weiss  is  a  master  in 
the  application  of  this  wonderful  method.  His  way  of 
interpreting  the  miracles  of  Jesus  must  not  be  passed  in 
silence. 

Weiss  starts  from  the  general  character  of  the  age  in 
which  the  miracles  are  supposed  to  have  been  performed, 
its  credulity  and  thirst  for  miracles,  an  age  "  for  which 
saviour  and  physician  are  almost  the  same  thing."  It  is 
true  that  he  grants  that  the  sudden  and  remarkable  cures 
wrought  by  Jesus  cannot  be  controlled  in  their  further 
course.  "  We  do  not  hear  of  a  single  patient  who  tells 
anything  of  his  subsequent  history  "  (p.  119),  which  is 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  137 

at  least  very  curious,  and  does  not  say  much  for  their 
gratitude.  He  thinks,  however,  that  "  many  [!]  a  one 
will  acknowledge  "  that  Jesus  was  much  occupied  with 
healing  the  sick.  We  have,  it  is  true,  "  not  a  very  good 
idea  "  of  the  way  it  was  done.  We  can  only  imagine  the 
manner  in  which  Jesus  acted.  It  is,  however,  "  a  quite 
unreasonable  scepticism  to  say  that  these  scenes,  because 
of  the  difficulty  of  imagining  them,  and  thelhealing  work 
of  Jesus  in  general,  should  be  relegated  to  the  province  of 
legend.  That  Jesus  was  regarded  and  sought  as  a  healer 
of  the  sick  we  are  bound  to  assume,  as  the  popular  side  of 
the  great  impression  which  he  made  on  men,"  which  in 
turn  is  simply  assumed  in  this  paragraph.  "  The  one  [!] 
possible  explanation  is  that  he  was  full  of  the  belief  that 
he  was  allied  to  divine  force;  his  confidence  in  God's 
miraculous  aid,  his  '  enthusiasm  '  in  this  regard,  must  [!] 
have  been  strong  and  sincere,  and  it  must  [!]  have  been 
based  on  real  experience  "  (p.  117). 

Take,  for  instance,  the  possessed  in  the  synagogue  at 
Capernaum.  Weiss  thinks  he  can  explain  his  delivery  by 
the  enthusiastic  messianic  character  of  the  preaching  of 
Jesus,  "  by  which  the  patient,  identifying  himself  with 
the  demon  within  him,  feels  that  he  is  personally 
threatened,  yet  at  the  same  time  attracted ;  and  thus  a 
paroxysm  is  provoked,  and  it  is  followed  by  tranquillity. 
In  this,"  he  exclaims,  "  how  have  we  passed  the  bounds 
of  historical  interpretation  ?  What  is  there  improbable 
in  the  episode  ?  "  Jesus  imposed  silence  on  the  demon 
"  by  virtue  of  the  divine  spirit  which  he  felt  in  himself." 
If  any  one  ventures  to  differ  from  him,  Weiss  bitterly 
retorts  :  "  Any  man  who  says  that  these  religious  ideas 
and  emotions  are  inconceivable  had  better  keep  his  hand 
off  matters  of  religious  history  ;  he  has  no  equipment  to 
deal  with  them"  (p.  121).  Then  there  is  the  healing  of 
Peter's  mother-in-law.  "I  have,"  says  Weiss,  "no 
experience  in  such  matters  [What  a  pity  !  What  a  lot 
he  might  have  taught  us  had  he  been  able  to  experiment 


138  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

on  his  own  mother-in-law !]  ;  but  I  do  not  see  that  what 
is  described  here  is  impossible  "  (p.  122)  .*  It  is  true  that 
one  may  regard  the  curing  of  such  a  patient  by  suggestive 
influence  as  "  quite  possible,  and  even  probable."  But 
what  sort  of  "  science  "  it  is  to  reduce  the  whole  contents 
of  the  gospels  to  mere  possibilities  of  this  sort  we  must  be 
permitted  to  hold  our  own  opinion. 

Perhaps  the  "  method  "  by  which  critical  theologians 
prove  the  existence  of  their  Jesus  cannot  be  better  studied 
than  in  the  case  of  Weiss's  Das  dlteste  Evangelium.  Weiss 
tries  to  prove  that  the  author  of  our  gospel  of  Mark  is 
merely  incorporating  an  already  existing  tradition.  "  Not 
without  certain  assumptions,'"  he  admits,  "  do  we  set  about 
the  inquiry.  We  have  been  prepared  by  the  tradition  of 
the  early  Church,  especially  by  the  evidence  of  Papias  [!] , 
to  find  that  in  the  gospel  which  has  come  down  to  us 
under  the  name  of  Mark  we  shall  find  an  echo  of  the 
statements  of  Peter.  Hence  [!]  we  approach  our  subject 
with  the  particular  question  how  far  the  reminiscences  of 
Peter  form  the  groundwork"  (p.  120).  "My  aim  is,  I 
candidly  admit,  to  trace  the  text  of  Mark  in  its  general 
lines  [!]  to  an  earlier  tradition.  As  far  as  it  is  possible  [!] , 
I  endeavour  to  trace  it  to  Peter's  way  of  looking  at  things, 
and  understand  it  as  historically  as  possible.  I  am,  there- 
fore, a  partisan  of  my  author — that  I  grant  to  a  certain 
extent  "  (p.  122).  Now  let  us  listen. 

"  Now,  after  that  John  was  put  in  prison,  Jesus  came 
into  Galilee  preaching  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom  of  God  " 
(Mark  i,  14).  "  Thus  Peter  may  have  begun  his  account  " 
(p.  136).  Then  there  is  the  account  of  the  calling  of  the 
early  disciples.  Here  we  detect  a  certain  amount  of 
literary  manipulation  ;  the  story  reminds  us  too  strikingly 
of  the  calling  of  Elisha  by  Elijah  (1  Kings  xix,  19).  It  is 
not  certain  that  the  phrase  "  fishers  of  men  "  was  uttered 

1  In  his  work,  Das  alteste  Evangelium  (1903),  Weiss  tells  us  that  it  was 
"probably  a  case  of  malarial  fever,"  and  refers  us  to  Eulenburg's  Real- 
Encyclopadie  der  ges.  Jlcilkundc,  p.  146. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  139 

on  this  occasion.  But  it  may  have  been  spoken  on  another 
occasion,  and  the  whole  account  may  spring  from  a 
reminiscence  of  that  "unforgettable  moment"  in  which 
the  word  of  Jesus  induced  Peter  to  follow  him.  The 
technical  phrase  "casting  of  nets"  is,  Weiss  assures  us, 
significant ;  he  seems  to  think  it  improbable  that  any  but 
a  fisherman  should  use  this  very  unfamiliar  phrase,  or 
know  anything  about  so  unusual  an  occupation.  In  this 
case  we  may  have  the  first  part  of  those  narratives  of 
Peter  which  Mark  is  said  by  Papias  to  have  used.  Now 
for  the  Sabbath  in  Capernaum,  the  healing  of  the  possessed 
in  the  synagogue  and  of  Peter's  mother-in-law,  the  healings 
in  the  evening,  the  flight  in  the  morning.  How  excellent 
a  local  and  chronological  connection  there  is  between  the 
stories!  How  vividly  the  details  are  told  !  How  the  agitation 
of  all  concerned  is  felt  in  the  account !  From  all  this  the 
"  sole  scientific  method,  the  one  prudent  and  critical  view," 
deduces  that  (we  tremble  with  curiosity)  here  we  have  an 
"  excellent  tradition  " — in  fact,  the  recollections  of  Peter 
—because  (we  must  complete  the  argument)  no  other 
man  could  have  invented  these  things,  or  at  least  not 
have  told  them  in  that  way. 

In  the  second  chapter  we  have  the  strange  story  of 
the  palsied  man  who  could  not  reach  Jesus  on  account  of 
the  crowd,  so  that  they  had  to  remove  the  roof  of  the 
house  and  let  him  down  to  the  healer  within.  As  the 
scene  is  Capernaum,  and  there  is  "  mention  of  a  house," 
it  is  natural,  according  to  Weiss,  to  suppose  that  it  was 
Peter's  house  !  Another  of  Peter's  reminiscences,  there- 
fore. Does  the  parable  of  the  sower  belong  to  the  same 
category  ?  "  We  should  like  to  believe  it,  on  account  of 
the  graphic  introduction  [!] .  The  reminiscence  recalls  a 
very  clearly-described  locality  [the  fact  is  that  Jesus  is 
supposed  to  have  spoken  the  parable  from  a  boat  at  the 
shore],  and  the  time  of  it  also  is  determined  by  iv,  35 
["And  the  same  day,  when  the  even  was  come"].  It 
was  a  perfectly  definite  [?]  day  on  which  these  things 


140  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

took  place"   (p.  178).     The  boat  (iv,  1)  was,  of  course, 
Peter's  boat,  though  this  is  not  said  in  the  text. 

Into  the  story  of  the  daughter  of  Jairus  the  healing  of 
the  woman  with  an  issue  of  blood  is  rather  artistically 
woven.  This  artistic  combination  cannot  be  a  literary 
device,  but  depends  on  a  real  historical  reminiscence. 
"It  was  unforgettable  that  so  curious  an  event  should 
take  place  on  the  way  to  the  house  of  Jairus  "  (p.  180). 
Then  there  is  the  calming  of  the  tempest.  The  story  is 
so  improbable,  and  so  strongly  suggests  Jonah  i,  3  and  5, 
that  most  critics  since  Strauss  have  regarded  it  as  a  mere 
legend,  and  one  is  disposed  to  ask,  with  Weiss :  "If  Peter 
could  tell  things  of  that  kind,  what  use  is  he  to  us  ?  " 
Nevertheless,  why  should  we  not  once  more  see  a  real 
episode  at  the  base  of  it,  and  suppose  that  the  evangelist 
afterwards  gave  it  the  first  touches  of  miraculous  quality  ? 
In  the  same  way,  the  story  of  the  Gadarene  possessed  is 
supposed  to  be  based  on  "  a  sound  tradition  "  (tradition 
is  always  "sound"  when  it  fits  the  theological  scheme). 
Observe  how  the  writer's  acquaintance  with  the  locality 
is  assumed.  What  a  graphic  description !  Mountains 
running  down  to  the  shore  and  falling  precipitously  into 
the  sea!1  "This  description  could  only  originate  among 
those  who  were  familiar  with  these  features  of  the 
country."  Mark  could  not  have  so  described  it  unless 
tradition  had  enabled  him ;  hence  the  story  must  be  true, 
and  Peter  must  be  the  teller  of  it.  And  then  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  possessed  man!  The  symptoms  are  totally 
different  from  those  of  the  possessed  in  the  synagogue ; 
it  is  "  epileptoid  hysteria  "  (this  also  the  "  historian  "  seems 
to  have  found  in  Eulenburg's  Eeal-Encijclopadie) .  The 
account,  moreover,  must  have  been  given  by  the  patient 
himself  after  his  restoration  or  by  the  other  people  ;  hence 
— once  more  we  have  a  "  sound  tradition."  The  only  defect 
of  the  evangelist's  description  is  that  he  is  too  much 

1  Mark  v,  11  and  13. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  141 

interested  in  the  swine,  too  little  in  the  man.  "  The 
story  is  interesting  in  any  case,  and  if  any  man  takes 
offence  at  it  he  may  be  told  that  it  was  narrated  precisely 
on  that  account"  (p.  189). 

So  much  for  the  "  historian "  Weiss.  After  these 
specimens  of  his  critical  exegesis  we  may  refrain  from 
following  him  further  along  this  path,  although  there  is 
much  in  his  work  that  ought  not  to  be  suffered  to  pass 
into  oblivion ;  his  interpretation,  for  instance,  of  the 
confession  of  Peter  at  Caesarea  Philippi — the  locality  is 
"  drawn  to  the  life,"  the  detail  is  "  thoroughly  concrete  "; 
it  has,  as  Herr  von  Soden  would  say,  "  the  very  smell  of 
the  soil  of  Palestine,"  so  that  we  are  compelled  to  admit 
its  historical  reality — and  his  conception  of  the  trans- 
figuration of  Moses,  which  must,  of  course,  have  been  a 
11  visionary  experience  on  the  part  of  Peter." 

We  may  add,  to  the  credit  of  science,  that  the  effort 
of  Weiss  to  reconstruct  the  fundamental  form  of  Mark's 
narrative  by  means  of  exegetic  analysis,  and  prove  that 
Peter  and  his  friends  were  responsible  for  it,  has  met 
with  the  most  violent  resistance  even  among  his  own 
colleagues.  Wellhausen  finds  the  tradition  of  Mark  as 
regards  Galilee  and  the  Galilean  narratives  to  be  of  such 
a  nature  that  it  cannot  be  referred  to  the  primitive 
disciples.  "  Is  it  possible,"  he  asks,  "  that  Peter  was  the 
authority  for  the  sudden  vocation  of  the  four  fishers  of 
men? — that  he  told  of  the  walking  on  the  sea,  the 
driving  of  the  evil  spirit  into  the  swine,  the  healing  of 
the  woman  with  an  issue  of  blood  by  the  virtue  of  his 
garments,  and  of  the  deaf  and  blind  by  means  of  spittle  ? 
And  why  does  he  not  tell  us  more,  and  in  greater  detail, 
about  the  intercourse  of  the  master  with  his  disciples  ? 
It  does  not  seem  likely  that  the  narrative  tradition  in 
Mark  originated  among  the  companions  of  Jesus  ?  "  Otto 
Schmiedel  also  finds  himself  compelled  to  put  more  than 

1  Einl.  in  die  drei  ersten  Evangelicn,  1905,  p.  52. 


142  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

one  note  of  interrogation  after  the  statements  of  Weiss, 
and  observes  :  "  We  do  not  know  with  so  much  confidence 
(in  spite  of  Papias)  that  Peter  was  Mark's  authority."1 
In  fact,  the  whole  method  is  in  the  air,  and  it  is  quite 
hopeless  to  attempt  to  deduce  the  historicity  of  the  gospel 
narratives  from  their  character. 


4.— THE  "  UNIQUENESS  "  AND  "  UNINVENTIBILITY  " 
OF  THE  GOSPEL  POETEAIT  OF  JESUS. 

In  the  absence  of  any  objective  criterion  it  is  necessary 
for  the  theologian  to  rely  upon  subjective  feeling  and  seek 
in  this  the  irrefragable  proof  of  the  historicity  of  the 
gospel  Jesus.  Here  we  have  especially  to  meet  the 
emphatic  claim  that  the  portrait  of  Jesus  is  "  unique  " 
and  "  could  not  have  been  invented." 

As  to  the  uniqueness,  the  phrase  is  so  obviously  used 
for  the  purpose  of  raising  the  personality  of  Jesus  above 
all  other  men,  in  spite  of  its  purely  human  and  historical 
character,  and  to  provide  some  compensation  for  the  loss 
of  belief  in  his  divinity,  that  we  need  not  linger  over  it. 
Even  a  theologian  like  Paul  W.  Schmiedel  acknowledges  : 
"  For  my  part  I  never  claim  that  Jesus  was  unique ;  it 
either  means  nothing  at  all,  since  every  man  is  unique, 
or  it  may  seem  to  affirm  too  much."2  And  the  historian 
Seeck  observes  that  every  man  has  his  like,  and  therefore 
there  are  no  unique  personalities  in  the  sense  in  which 
theologians  use  the  word  here.8  Faust,  Hamlet,  Lear, 
and  Caliban,  and  their  like,  are  unique  ;  are  they  therefore 
historical  personalities  ? 

The  great  point,  however,  is  that  the  figure  of  Jesus, 
as  it  is  described  in  the  gospels,  "  could  not  have  been 
invented."  This  is  repeated  incessantly,  not  only  in 
popular  discussions,  but  even  by  experts  such  as  von 

1  Die  Hauptprobleme  der  Leben-Jesu-Forschung,  2  Aufl.,  1906,  p.  62. 
3  Die  Person  Christi  im  Streite  der  Meinungen  der  Gegenwart,  1906, 
p.  29. 
8  Oeschichte  des  Untergangs  der  antiken  Welt,  iii,  p.  183. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  143 

Soden,  Jiilicher,  Weiss,  and  even  Harnack.  How  much 
truth  there  is  in  it  has  been  shown  by  Steudel  in  his 
work  against  von  Soden.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  find 
a  more  ridiculous  phrase  or  a  feebler  argument.  In  no 
other  historical  inquiry  whatever  would  such  an  argument 
be  admitted  as  proof  of  the  historicity  of  a  certain  person 
or  event.  None  but  a  theological  historian  would  venture 
to  use  such  an  argument,  and  it  is  lamentable  that  he 
should  find  any  support  on  the  side  of  profane  historians. 
As  if  one  could  settle  a  priori  the  limits  of  the  human 
faculty  of  invention !  As  if  the  figure  of  Jesus  in  the 
gospels  stood  really  apart  from  comparison  with  any 
others !  If  religious-historical  inquiry  has  told  us  any- 
thing, it  has  shown  that  this  is  the  reverse  of  the  truth. 
The  Saviour  of  the  gospels  is  paralleled  by  other  redeem- 
ing divinities,  whom  he  resembles  so  closely  at  times  as 
to  be  identical  with  them.  His  fate  is  entirely  related  to 
that  of  Attis,  Adonis,  Dionysos,  Osiris,  Marduch,  etc. 
Indeed,  in  many  and  important  points  we  recognise  a 
human  personality  in  the  saviours  of  the  non-Judaic 
religions,  and  the  more  research  advances  in  that  field 
the  clearer  it  becomes  that  the  separate  features  of  the 
figure  of  Jesus  have  their  counterpart,  partly  in  ancient 
mythology,  partly  and  especially  in  the  Old  Testament, 
and  thus  it  is  absurd  to  say  that  they  could  not  be 
invented.  So  fine  a  story  as  that  of  the  disciples  at 
Emrnaus  (Luke  xxiv,  13),  which  treats  of  the  risen,  not 
the  living,  Christ,  and  therefore  must  certainly  be  un- 
historical  according  to  the  critical  theologians,  could  be 
"  invented."1  The  story  of  the  adulterous  woman  also, 
which  is  found  only  in  John  (viii,  1),  is  allowed  to  be  a 
later  invention.2  Even  the  pleasant  story  of  the  two 
sisters,  Mary  and  Martha  (Luke  x,  38),  is,  as  Smith  has 
shown  in  his  Ecce  Deus,  a  mere  allegory  of  the  relations 
of  paganism  and  Judaism  to  the  cult  of  Jesus,  the  former 

1  Cf.  Niemojewski,  Warum  eilten  die  Jiinger  nach  Emmaus  ?  (1911). 

2  Compare  Robertson's  Christianity  and  Mythology,  p.  457. 


144  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

receiving  him  with  joy,  the  latter  occupying  herself  much 
with  customs  and  ceremonies  and  claiming  the  same 
service  from  her  "  sister."1  If  these  three  stories — three 
of  the  pearls  of  the  gospels — were  invented,  what  is  there 
that  could  not  be  invented  ? 

However,  one  has  the  feeling  that  the  theological 
historians  are  not  really  very  much  in  earnest  with  this 
argument.  They  use  it  only  at  times  as  a  rhetorical 
auxiliary,  and  on  account  of  the  impression  which  it  is 
apt  to  make  on  the  thoughtless  mass  of  people.  Even 
Weiss  seems  to  be  not  quite  at  home  with  it  (p.  15),  and 
Schmiedel  expressly  acknowledges  that  the  statement 
that  the  figure  of  Jesus  in  the  gospels  could  not  be 
invented  "  is  not  a  valid  argument  in  its  general  form." 
"  We  must,"  he  says,  "  restrict  it  to  certain  passages  in 
which  it  is  indisputably  valid.  I  count  nine  such 
passages,  and,  in  order  to  emphasise  their  importance, 
give  them  a  special  name  :  I  call  them  the  main  pillars 
of  a  really  scientific  life  of  Jesus."2 

5.— SCHMIEDEL'S  "  MAIN  PILLAES." 

We  have  now  reached  a  point  where  the  man  who 
denies  the  historicity  of  Jesus  is  to  be  definitively  put  to 
shame:  the  "granite,"  the  "historical  bedrock,"  which, 
according  to  the  theological  critics,  will  resist  every 
attempt  to  rob  the  gospel  narratives  of  their  funda- 
mentally historical  character.  Nine  main  pillars  of  a 
really  scientific  life  of  Jesus  !  The  same  number  as  in  a 
game  of  skittles.  Here  we  have  the  last  solid  ground 
on  which  the  structure  of  the  liberal  conception  of  Jesus 
rests.  Beneath  the  roof  that  rests  on  these  nine  pillars 


1  Moreover,  the  circumstance  that  Martha  ("  mistress  ")  worried  also 
finds  expression  in  the  name  of  the  place,  Bethany,  where,  according  to 
John,  the  episode  is  supposed  to  have  taken  place.  In  Aramaic  it  means 
"The  house  of  her  who  worries." 

a  Die  Person  Jesu  im  Streite  der  Meinungen  der  Gegenwart.  See  also 
Schmiedel's  work,  Das  vierte  Evangelium  gegeniibtr  den  drei  ersten,  p.  16. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  145 

the  critic  may  confidently  relax  from  the  strain  of  his 
usual  historical  efforts.  As  long  as  the  pillars  stand 
there  is  no  danger  of  the  collapse  of  the  Christian 
historical  belief.  But  what  if  these  also  are  fragile — if 
the  "granite  "  is  mere  plaster  or  stucco,  if  the  nine  main 
pillars  are  merely  wings  to  hide  the  emptiness  and 
nakedness  of  the  theological  way  of  writing  history? 
What  if  they  are  "jerry-built  houses,"  intended  only  for 
show  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  pillars  will  stand  only 
as  long  as  one  refrains  from  putting  them  to  a  serious 
test,  and  is  content  to  admire  their  "  really  scientific  " 
appearance;  it  would  hardly  take  a  Samson  to  bring 
Schmiedel's  whole  nine  pillars  with  a  crash  to  the  ground. 
For  they  are  based  entirely  on  the  assumption  that  it  is 
the  aim  of  the  gospels  to  represent  the  historical  human 
Jesus  as  a  divine  being ;  they  fall  of  themselves  the 
moment  one  assumes  that,  as  the  "  Christ-myth  "  main- 
tains, they  seek,  on  the  contrary,  to  describe  as  a  real 
man  one  who  was  originally  a  god. 

Schmiedel's  nine  pillars  have  of  late  years,  on  account 
of  the  great  part  they  have  played  in  the  discussion  of  the 
Jesus-problem,  been  subjected  to  a  close  scrutiny  by  more 
than  one  writer.  Hertlein  endeavoured  to  upset  them  in 
1906,  and  more  recently  Robertson  (Christianity  and 
Mythology} ,  Lublinski  (Das  werdende  Dogma,  p.  93) ,  Steudel 
(Im  Kampf  urn  die  C.M.,  p.  88),  and  W.  B.  Smith  (most 
fully  of  all,  in  his  Ecce  Deus)  have  dealt  with  them,  and 
shown  that  they  are  entirely  untenable.  I  might  there- 
fore refrain  from  returning  to  the  subject  were  it  not  that 
so  much  stress  is  still  laid  by  theological  "  historians  "  on 
Schmiedel's  nine  pillars ;  and  a  fresh  discussion,  at  least 
of  the  more  important  of  them,  is  needed. 

First,  then,  what  is  the  nucleus  of  Schmiedel's  argu- 
ment ?  When,  he  says,  one  learns  about  "  an  historical 
person  merely  from  a  book  that  is  pervaded  with  reverence 
for  its  hero,  as  the  gospels  are  in  regard  to  Jesus,  he 
regards  most  confidently  those  passages  in  the  book  as 

L 


146  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

authoritative  which  are  not  in  harmony  with  this  rever- 
ence ;  he  says  to  himself  that,  in  view  of  the  author's 
mood,  they  could  not  have  been  invented  by  him — indeed, 
could  not  have  been  chosen  by  him  from  the  material  at 
his  disposal  if  they  had  not  been  forced  on  him  as  abso- 
lutely true." 

There  is,  for  instance,  the  statement  in  Mark  (iii,  21) 
that  the  relatives  of  Jesus,  his  mother  and  brothers,  went 
forth  to  seize  him,  saying  that  he  was  mad.  That,  says 
Schmiedel,  cannot  have  been  invented  by  one  who  rever- 
enced Jesus,  because  he  would  lower  his  hero  in  the  eyes 
of  his  readers ;  it  is  the  less  conceivable  when  we  reflect 
that  the  other  evangelists  say  nothing  of  such  language 
being  used  by  the  relatives  of  Jesus,  clearly  because  they 
felt  it  to  be  out  of  harmony  with  their  conception  of 
Jesus.  Hence  in  this  passage  of  Mark  we  have  the  echo 
of  a  real  historical  reminiscence.  But  in  the  gospel  of 
John,  which  is  generally  admitted  to  carry  the  glorifica- 
tion of  Jesus  to  its  highest  point,  we  find  the  depreciatory 
circumstance  that  even  his  brothers  did  not  believe  in 
him  (vii,  5)  ;  and  in  x,  20,  the  evangelist  makes  the  Jews 
say:  "  He  hath  a  devil,  and  is  mad."  In  the  book  of 
Wisdom  (v,  4)  we  read  how  the  godless  spoke  of  the  just 
man :  "  His  life  we  held  for  a  folly."  In  Zechariah 
(xiii,  3)  it  is  written :  "  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  [in  the 
days  of  the  saving  of  Jerusalem  from  the  attack  of  its 
enemies]  that,  when  any  shall  yet  prophesy,  then  his 
father  and  his  mother  that  begat  him  shall  say  unto  him  : 
Thou  shalt  not  live,  for  thou  speakest  lies  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord ;  and  his  father  and  his  mother  that  begat  him 
shall  thrust  him  through  when  he  prophesieth."  And  to 
those  who  ask  him  about  the  wounds  on  his  hands  he  will 
reply :  "  Those  with  which  I  was  wounded  in  the  house 
of  my  friends."  In  Psalms  (Ixix,  8)  it  is  likewise  said  : 
"  I  am  become  a  stranger  unto  my  brethren,  and  an  alien 
unto  my  mother's  children."  Now,  no  one  doubts  that 
the  figure  of  Jesus  in  the  gospels  is  in  many  respects 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  147 

determined  by  passages  in  the  Old  Testament.  How  can 
one  doubt  that  what  Schmiedel  thinks  "  could  not  be 
invented  "  originated  in  that  source? 

Moreover,  Schleiermacher  has  pointed  out,  and  Strauss 
confirmed  the  fact,  that  the  word  of  the  Pharisees,  "  He 
hath  Beelzebub"  (Mark  iii,  22),  which  has  quite  a 
different  context  in  Matthew  (ix,  34,  and  xii,  24)  and 
Luke  (xi,  15),  gave  the  evangelist  an  opportunity  to  put 
it,  in  its  meaning,  also  in  the  mouths  of  the  relatives  of 
Jesus,  in  order  to  explain  his  slighting  reply  when  their 
coming  was  announced  to  him.1  It  has,  however,  clearly 
only  the  symbolical  meaning  that  real  relationship  with 
Jesus  is  purely  spiritual,  not  bodily,  and  it  is  neither 
"beyond  the  range  of  invention"  nor  contradictory  to 
the  divine  reverence  for  Jesus.  In  fine,  the  conduct  of 
the  Saviour's  relatives  in  the  gospels  need  not  be  taken  at 
all  as  a  depreciation  of  Jesus,  so  that  there  is  no  need  to 
regard  it  as  historical  on  that  account.  "As  if,"  Steudel 
says,  "  a  romancer  depreciates  his  hero  by  representing 
him  as  misunderstood  by  those  about  him."2  As  if  it 
might  not  just  as  well  have  been  his  aim  to  bring  out  the 
surpassing  importance  of  Jesus  by  representing  him  as 
too  great  to  be  understood  by  his  relatives,  and  even  being 
regarded  by  them  as  mad.  When  people  refuse  to  recog- 
nise an  "  historical  sense  "  in  those  of  us  who  deny  the 
historicity  of  Jesus  because  we  find  such  an  argument  as 
this  trivial,  we  must  on  our  part  refuse  the  "  aesthetic 
sense  "  to  Schmiedel  and  his  followers  because  they  so 
little  understand  the  poetical  fineness  of  that  passage  in 
Mark  as  to  find  it  out  of  harmony  with  the  general 
portrait  of  Jesus  in  the  gospels. 

We  turn  to  the  second  pillar.  In  Mark  x,  18,  Jesus 
declines  to  be  called  a  "good"  master — "Why  callest 
thou  me  good?  There  is  none  good  but  one,  that  is 


1  Strauss,  Leben  Jesu,  I,  692. 

2  Im  Kampfe  utn  die  Christtismythe,  p.  89. 


148  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

God."  How  little  such  an  expression  could  be  invented 
by  the  followers  of  Jesus  who  wrote  the  gospels,  says 
Schmiedel,  we  learn  from  Matthew.  In  his  gospel 
(xix,  16)  the  rich  man  says :  "  Good  master,  what  good 
thing  shall  I  do  that  I  may  have  eternal  life  ?  And  he 
said  unto  him,  Why  asketh  thou  me  about  the  good  ? 
One  is  good."1  Logically,  Jesus  ought  to  have  said  : 
"  One  thing  is  the  good."  But  as  Matthew  had  the  words 
of  Mark  before  him,  and  sought  to  avoid  their  offensive- 
ness,  he  changed  the  words.2  Unfortunately,  it  is  not  at 
all  certain  that  in  this  case  Mark  has  the  original  text. 
The  oldest  manuscripts  read  like  Matthew,  and  leave 
out  the  "good"  at  the  beginning  of  the  usual  text,  so 
that  the  text  of  Mark  may  be  a  later  form  of  the  altered 
text  of  Matthew.  This  oldest  text,  however,  is  not  at 
all  as  illogical  as  Schmiedel  represents.  In  the  Hebrew 
version  of  the  reply  of  Jesus  the  masculine  and  neuter 
are  both  the  same :  it  may  be  either  "  one  person  "  or 
"  one  thing."  "  Let  us  assume  (with  Eesch)  that  the 
reply  ran  :  One  thing  is  good — keep  the  commandments. 
First  this  was  translated  into  the  masculine  gender  in 
Greek :  One  is  good.  Afterwards  the  explanatory  note 
was  added,  and  later  admitted  to  the  text — namely,  God. 
'  One  is  good,  God,'  seemed  to  be  in  opposition  to  the 
person  of  Jesus.  Hence  the  question,  Why  askest  thou 
me  about  the  good  ?  had  to  be  changed  into,  Why  callest 
thou  me  good  ?  The  connection  was  now  broken,  and  it 
had  to  be  restored  by  adding,  '  But  if  thou  wilt  enter 
into  life,'  and  so  the  original  question  was  resumed." 
This  is  the  literary-critical  hypothesis  put  forward  by 
Pott  as  regards  the  historical  evolution  of  the  text.8 
However  that  may  be,  in  such  a  condition  of  things  no 

1  [The  English  translation  of  the  Bible  has  the  same  answer  in  Matthew 
and  Mark.     I  find  that  there  are  different  versions  of  the  Greek  text  of 
Matthew  xix,  16.— J.  M.] 

2  Das  vierte  Evangelium,  p.  19. 

8  Der  Text  des  Neuen  Testaments  nach  seiner  geschichtliclien  Entwick- 
lung,  1906,  p.  63,     Also  see  Robertson's  Christianity  and  Mythology. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  149 

one  has  a  right  to  say  that  the  correct  answer  of  Jesus  is 
in  Mark,  and  that  Matthew  gives  a  tendentious  modifica- 
tion of  the  original  text,  and  to  make  a  "  main  pillar" 
out  of  such  material  as  this.  Psychologically,  it  is  just 
as  improbable  that  the  innocent  and  customary  address 
"  good  master  "  provoked  Jesus  to  disclaim  the  epithet  as 
that  the  question  as  to  doing  good  should  have  prompted 
him  to  say  that  God  is  good.  Moreover,  the  answer 
"  God  alone  is  good  "  suggests  Plato  just  as  forcibly  as 
the  form  "  The  good  is  one  "  suggests  Euclid  of  Megara- 
Hence  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  these  words  of  Jesus 
"  could  not  be  invented."  For  the  rest,  until  Schmiedel 
no  one  had  noticed  anything  particularly  offensive  in  the 
passage  of  Mark.  Justin,  for  instance,  finds  in  the  reply  of 
Jesus  a  proof  of  the  Saviour's  lowliness  and  modesty  in 
disclaiming  the  appellation  "  good  ";  while  other  apostolic 
fathers,  in  the  opposite  sense  to  Schmiedel,  saw  in  the 
words  of  Jesus  a  proof  of  his  divinity,  making  Jesus 
apply  to  himself  the  words, "  God  alone  is  good,"  as  if 
he  wished  to  say :  "  That  man  rightly  calls  me  good, 
for  I  am  God." 

Equally  ambiguous  is  the  value  of  the  third  main 
pillar.  It  consists  in  this,  that  Jesus  could  perform  no 
miracle  in  Nazareth,  on  account  of  the  unbelief  of  his 
countrymen  (Mark  vi,  5).  But  it  is  maintained  that  the 
symbolical  character  of  this  passage  is  obvious.  Is  not 
the  glorification  of  the  power  of  faith  a  leading  tendency 
of  the  gospel  of  Mark?  "  For  verily  I  say  unto  you, 
That  whosoever  shall  say  unto  this  mountain,  Be  thou 
removed,  and  be  thou  cast  into  the  sea ;  and  shall  not 
doubt  in  his  heart,  but  shall  believe  that  those  things 
which  he  saith  shall  come  to  pass  ;  he  shall  have  what- 
soever he  saith.  Therefore  I  say  unto  you,  What  things 
soever  ye  desire,  when  ye  pray,  believe  that  ye  receive 
them,  and  ye  shall  have  them"  (xi,  23  and  24).  The 
man  who  believes  shall  receive  help  (x,  52).  Shortly 
before,  in  the  fifth  chapter,  the  evangelist  has  described 


150  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

how  the  woman  with  an  issue  of  blood  was  healed  owing 
to  her  faith  in  Jesus;  and  Jesus  said  to  Jairus,  whose 
daughter  had  died  :  "Be  not  afraid,  only  believe."  As  a 
complement  to  this  we  have  the  description  of  the  unbelief 
of  the  people  of  Nazareth  and  the  failure  of  the  wished-for 
miracles.  Can  anyone  seriously  doubt  that  the  story  has 
been  "  invented  "  to  illustrate  the  fundamental  idea  of  the 
gospel,  that  faith  is  necessary  for  miracles?  Moreover, 
the  sojourn  of  Jesus  in  Nazareth  clearly  reminds  the 
evangelist  of  the  familiar  saying  of  the  time,  that  a 
prophet  is  nowhere  of  less  account  than  in  his  own 
country  and  among  his  own  people.  He  therefore  puts 
the  proverb  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus,  and  then  illustrates  it 
by  making  him  refrain  from  performing  miracles  in  his 
country.  It  is,  in  any  case,  impossible  to  find  anything 
here  inconsistent  with  the  evangelist's  reverence  for 
Jesus.  The  thing  that  the  impartial  reader  would  be 
inclined  to  regard  as  beyond  the  range  of  invention  is 
that  anyone  should  be  scandalised  at  the  passage,  and 
from  this  scandal  endeavour  to  deduce  the  historicity 
of  Jesus. 

A  fourth  pillar,  according  to  Schmiedel,  is  Jesus's  cry 
of  despair  on  the  cross :  "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast 
thou  forsaken  me?"  The  words,  however,  are  found  at 
the  beginning  of  the  twenty-second  psalm,  which  gives 
various  details  of  the  crucifixion — the  just  man  hanging 
on  the  stake,  the  perforated  hands  and  feet,  the  mocking 
crowd,  the  soldiers  gambling  for  the  clothes — everything 
takes  place  as  described  in  the  psalm.  Is  it  possible  to 
believe  that  the  words  were  really  spoken  by  Jesus? 
Yes,  says  Schmiedel ;  and  Harnack  agrees.  If  the  story 
of  Jesus  is  recounted  in  such  a  way  that  the  sacred  words 
of  the  Old  Testament  seem  to  be  fulfilled  in  it,  this  was 
only  done  when  it  served  "the  interest  of  Jesus";  but 
this  interest  would  have  been  injured  if  the  words  of  the 
psalm  had  been  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  dying  Jesus.  As 
if  the  gospels  had  been  composed  in  much  the  same  way 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  151 

as  a  modern  writer  would  sit  down  at  his  desk  to  write  a 
large  book,  and  contained  one  consistent  idea,  with  the 
various  parts  carefully  controlled  and  all  contradictions 
avoided.  As  if  the  gospels  did  not  swarm  with  contra- 
dictions and  "  discordances  "  in  their  description  of  the 
character  and  experiences  of  Jesus,  which  afford  another 
proof  that  there  is  no  question  in  them  of  a  single  definite 
person  and  of  historical  recollections,  but  a  mere  collection 
of  details  taken  from  very  different  sources,  the  choice  of 
which  was  determined,  not  with  a  view  to  avoiding  con- 
tradictions, but  with  a  view  to  making  the  figure  of  the 
Saviour  as  vivid  and  attractive  as  possible  in  the  sense  of 
the  Messianic  expectations. 

Lublinski  has  admirably  shown  that  in  an  attempt  to 
give  sensuous  embodiment  to  a  symbol,  such  as  the 
supposed  historical  Jesus  is  in  our  opinion,  the  result  is 
inevitably  an  irrational  organism  which  is  sure  to  present 
many  "  contradictions  "  to  our  intellect.1  "  The  one  aim 
of  the  author  of  the  primitive  gospel,"  says  Steudel,  "  was 
to  give  an  expressive  elaboration  of  the  idea ;  and,  as  he 
wished  to  describe  Jesus  as  the  *  suffering  servant '  of 
Psalm  xxii,  he  could  not  hesitate  for  a  moment  to  put 
in  his  mouth  as  a  prayer  the  quotation  in  question. 
Whether  the  figure  which  he  built  up  was  consistent  or 
not  gave  very  little  concern  to  the  author."  2 

Even  the  theologian  Spitta  says  that  it  is  a  "  modern 
notion  that  a  later  dogmatic  could  not  possibly  have  put 
into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  the  despairing  cry  of  Matt. 
xxvii,  46,  and  Mark  xv,  34.  Dogmatics  has  had  nothing 
to  do  with  it ;  it  was  the  primitive  Christian  tradition 
which  saw  in  the  twenty-second  psalm  a  prediction  of  the 
death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus.  It  is  a  curious  illusion 
to  suppose  that  gospels  of  the  Christological  views  which 
Matthew  and  Mark  represent  would  not  suffer  Jesus  to 
end  his  life  with  a  cry  of  despair  of  God  and  his  mission. 

1  Das  werd.  Dogma,  p.  93. 

2  Im  Kampf  urn  die  Christiismythe,  p.  117. 


152 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


That  may  apply  to  certain  constructions  of  the  life  of 
Jesus,  but  it  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  feeling  of  the 
gospel  writers.  That,  in  view  of  the  undoubted  influence 
of  the  Old  Testament  doctrine  of  the  sufferings  of  the  just 
one  on  the  suffering  figure  of  Jesus  and  of  the  central 
significance  of  the  death  of  Jesus  in  the  Pauline  dogmatic, 
the  later  manipulations  of  the  evangelical  tradition  would 
not  be  disposed  to  weaken  the  sufferings  and  death  of 
Jesus,  should  not  need  emphasising." 

Only  if  it  were  proved  that  there  is  question  of  a  real 
history  in  the  gospels  could  one  admit  that  the  evangelist 
would  have  avoided  weaving  into  the  life-story  of  his 
Jesus  such  details  from  the  Old  Testament  as  did  not 
accord  with  his  main  idea  of  the  personality  of  Jesus. 
If  the  historicity  of  Jesus  were  established  by  other 
arguments  we  should  be  justified  in  deducing  from  the 
presence  of  these  details  the  fact  of  an  historical  tradition 
which  the  author  was  bound  to  reproduce.  But  to  seek 
a  proof  of  the  historicity  of  the  gospel  narrative  from 
mere  contradictions,  real  or  apparent,  is  not  science  nor 
the  method  "  which  every  historian  follows  in  non- 
theological  matters  ";  it  is  simply  the  method  of  arguing 
in  a  vicious  circle  which  is  peculiar  to  theological 
"  history,"  the  thing  that  has  to  be  proved  being  taken 
for  granted.  To  go  back  to  our  earlier  illustration  from 
Heracles,  we  could  prove  the  historicity  of  the  Greek 
hero  on  that  method.  In  the  account  of  him  there  are 
many  details  that  do  not  accord  with  the  otherwise 
splendid  figure  of  this  strongest  of  all  Greek  heroes.  He 
is  supposed  to  have  become  insane  at  times,  and  to  have 
murdered  his  own  children  when  in  that  condition ;  he 
is  said  to  have  taken  refuge  with  a  Thracian  woman  in 
his  struggle  with  the  Meropes,  and  concealed  himself  in 
female  clothing ;  in  fact,  he  is  supposed  to  have  been 
altogether  unmanly  and  weak  in  face  of  Omphale,  winding 


1  Zur  Oeschichte  und  Literatur  des  Urchristentums,  iii,  2,  1907,  p, 
Cf.  Feigel,  Der  Einfluss  des  Weissagungsbeweises,  u.s.w.,  63-69. 


204. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  153 

her  wool  and  running  round  her  in  her  garments.  We 
might  call  these  "  main  pillars  of  a  really  scientific  life 
of  Heracles"! 

Hence  it  is  sheer  self-deception  for  Schmiedel  to 
imagine  that  he  has  "established"  the  existence  of  an 
historical  Jesus  beyond  a  shadow  of  doubt.  His  main 
pillars  are  "  ingenious  discoveries  of  a  theologian,  master- 
pieces of  apologetic  hairsplitting "  (Steudel) ;  they  are 
"  small  matters  which  one  must  examine  with  a 
microscope  in  order  to  give  them  the  character  of 
granite  which  they  are  supposed  to  have  as  central 
columns  of  the  liberal  Jesus  "  (Krieck). 

Yet  the  four  we  have  discussed  are  the  only  ones 
among  them  which  even  seem  to  have  any  importance. 
This  cannot  be  said  of  the  other  five.  When  Jesus 
confesses,  in  regard  to  the  day  and  hour  of  the  end  of 
the  world,  that  "  no  man  knoweth,  no,  not  the  angels 
which  are  in  heaven,  neither  the  Son,  but  the  Father  " 
(Mark  xiii,  32),  we  can  only  say  that  omniscience  is  not 
expected  of  him,  as  the  evangelist  describes  him  as  a 
mere  man,  with  human  qualities  and  human  limitations. 
Moreover,  the  uncertainty  in  point  of  time  of  the  end  of 
the  world  is  one  of  the  normal  features  of  every 
apocalyptic.  Hence  the  ignorance  of  Jesus  on  that  point 
is  so  natural  that  the  evangelist  himself  prudently  refrains 
from  any  chronological  statement.  Lastly,  Smith  points 
out  how  one  may  infer  the  divine  character  of  the  Son 
from  his  being  placed  after  the  angels  in  the  words  of 
Jesus. 

And  when  Matthew  (xi,  5)  makes  the  Saviour  say : 
"  The  blind  receive  their  sight,  and  the  lame  walk,  the 
lepers  are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the  dead  are  raised  up, 
and  the  poor  have  the  gospel  preached  to  them,"  to  what 
extent  can  we  see  in  this  a  contradiction  of  the  idea 
which  the  evangelist  had  of  Jesus?  Schmiedel  takes 
the  words  spiritually :  the  spiritually  blind  shall  see,  the 
spiritually  lame  walk,  etc.,  because  Jesus,  he  thinks, 


154  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

"  could  not  have  more  seriously  destroyed  the  effect  of  his 
words  than  by  making  a  series  of  miracles,  which  rises  as 
high  as  the  awakening  of  the  dead,  close  with  something 
so  simple  and  common  as  preaching  to  the  poor."  Yet 
we  read  in  Isaiah  (xxxv,  5) ,  in  relation  to  the  promised 
coming  of  the  Lord :  "  Then  the  eyes  of  the  blind  shall 
be  opened,  and  the  ears  of  the  deaf  shall  be  unstopped. 
Then  shall  the  lame  man  leap  as  an  hart,  and  the  tongue 
of  the  dumb  sing."  And  in  Isaiah  Ixi,  1,  it  is  said: 
"  The  spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is  upon  me :  because  the 
Lord  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  unto  the 
meek ;  he  hath  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted, 
to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the  opening  of  the 
prison  to  them  that  are  bound  [sight  to  the  blind] ;  to 
proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord  and  the  day  of 
vengeance  of  our  God;  to  comfort  all  that  mourn."1 
Clearly,  the  "pillar"  is  merely  made  up  of  these  two 
passages,  and  therefore  the  saying  of  Jesus  has  no  claim 
to  historicity. 

Of  the  rest  of  the  "main  pillars"  it  is  better  to 
say  nothing.  Those  who  are  interested  may  consult 
Schmiedel  and  the  works  we  have  quoted.  For  my  part, 
I  have  tried  in  vain  to  see  in  them  any  sort  of  argument 
for  an  historical  Jesus.  A  man  has  to  be  a  theologian  to 
appreciate  arguments  of  this  kind.  We  may  assume 
that  real  historians  shrug  their  shoulders  at  Schmiedel's 
"nine  main  pillars,"  if  they  have  gone  so  far  as  to  look 
into  the  matter.  Schmiedel's  "  nine  main  pillars "  are 
excellent  companions  to  the  three  "  pillar-apostles "  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  At  a  distance  they  look 
very  fine ;  when  you  come  closer  to  them  they  dissolve 
into  atoms.  Schmiedel  thinks  that  in  virtue  of  his 
"pillars"  he  "knows"  that  the  person  of  Jesus  cannot 
be  relegated  to  the  world  of  fable.  He  also  "knows" 
that  "  Jesus  was  a  man  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word,  and 

1  See  also  Isaiah  xlii,  7. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  155 

that  in  him  the  divine,  which  is,  of  course,  not  on  that 
account  denied,  must  be  sought  only  as  it  can  be  found 
in  a  man."1  We  leave  him  with  this  "  knowledge  ";  for 
our  part,  we  decline  to  settle  in  a  house  that  rests  on  these 
"nine  main  pillars  of  a  really  scientific  life  of  Jesus."3 
Schmiedel  has  the  support  of  his  colleague  Weiss  in  his 
search  for  "indubitable  historical  features"  in  the 
evangelical  figure  of  Jesus.  "  The  power  of  Jesus,"  Weiss 
says,  "  rests  on  the  spirit  that  was  given  to  him  in 
baptism ;  we  see  how  this  spirit  wrestles  with  the 
spirits"  (Mark  i,  25;  iii,  11;  v,  6,  8;  xxv,  etc.).  Then 
follows  the  list  of  Schmiedel's  chief  pillars,  and  the 
"  historian  "  continues :  "We  see  [!]  how  the  dogmatic 
conception  of  the  evangelist  was  unable  to  absorb  the 
human-historical  figure"  (p.  133).  Surely  we  have  here 
a  tenth  main  pillar  !3 

This,  then,  is,  as  regards  the  historicity  of  Jesus,  the 
"  solid  "  fruit  of  that  penetrating  "  analytical  work  on  the 
gospels  which  is  called  historical  exegesis,"  which  has 
been  going  on  for  more  than  a  century.  We  quite  under- 
stand that  "  there  are  many  who  are  indifferent  to  this 
inquiry  into  the  inner  structure  of  a  document,  and 

1  Die  Person  Jesu,  p.  9. 

2  Observe  the  play  of  colour  in  the  phrase  "  a  man  in  the  full  sense  of 
the  word,"  in  whom,  nevertheless,  "the  divine  is  not  denied,"  though  it 
"  must  be  sought  only  as  it  can  be  found  in  a  man."     (See  also  his  Das 
vierte  Evangelium,  p.  17,  where  it  is  said  that,  while  we  acknowledge  that 
there  was  something  divine  in  Jesus,  he  thought  and  lived  in  a  way  which 
we   must   regard    as    really  human.     To  what    triviality  is   this  "God- 
manhood  "  reduced  in  our  liberal  theologians  !)     Is  Jesus  a  God-man  in 
the  Christian  sense  or  is  he  not?     We  might  ask  these  theologians  in 
the    words    of    Elijah :    "  How    long    halt  ye   between  two  opinions  ? " 
(1  Kings  xviii,  21). 

8  Some  may  see  a  sort  of  main  pillar  in  the  words  of  Jesus  (Mark 
xiii,  30):  " This  generation  shall  not  pass  till  all  these  things  be  done." 
Because,  they  may  say,  if  a  prophecy  of  this  kind,  which  was  not  confirmed 
by  the  course  of  events,  could  remain  in  the  gospels,  it  must  have  been 
uttered  by  Jesus.  But  is  it  not  possible  that  the  saying  of  Jesus  is  part  of 
the  Jewish  apocalyptic  which  is  embodied  in  the  chapter  of  Mark  quoted  ? 
In  that  case  it  is  no  more  historical  than  Matt,  x,  23,  Mark  ix,  1,  and 
Luke  ix,  27,  which  are  merely  due  to  modifications  of  Mark  xiii,  30.  The 
saying  cannot  be  a  "  main  pillar  "  because  it  contradicts  the  first  "pillar  " 
(Mark  xiii,  32),  according  to  which  Jesus  declined  to  tell  the  time  of  the 
end  of  the  world. 


156  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

declare  in  warning  tones  that  the  work  of  theologians 
is  hopeless,  though  they  themselves  will  do  nothing" 
(Weiss,  p.  134). 


6.— THE  METHOD  OF  "  THE  CHRIST-MYTH." 

(a)  The  Literary  Character  of  the  Gospels. — Differently 
from  the  method  of  the  theological  historian,  The  Christ- 
Myth  starts  with  the  conviction  that  the  gospels  are,  on 
the  confession  of  the  theologians  themselves,  works  of 
edification,  not  of  history,  or  tendentious  works  of  a 
dogmatic-metaphysical  character ;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  not 
so  much  their  aim  to  describe  the  real  life  of  Jesus  as  to 
put  before  the  minds  of  their  readers  a  Jesus  that  will  be 
likely  to  "  influence  their  religious  feelings,  inflame  their 
hope,  and  awaken  their  faith."  Even  Weiss  admits  "  how 
impossible  it  is  to  take  the  gospel  of  Mark  forthwith, 
without  close  inquiry,  as  a  primitive  source.  We  cannot 
trace  the  inner  movement,  or  even  the  course  of  external 
events,  from  the  successive  pieces  in  Mark.  The  form 
and  tone  which  Mark  gives  to  the  various  parts  of  his 
narrative  are  often  more  dogmatic  than  historical;  he 
himself  is  not  a  chronicler,  but  a  witness  to  the  gospel  of 
Christ,  the  son  of  God  "  (p.  153).  In  the  conception  of 
Mark  the  death  of  Jesus  is,  as  Weiss  observes,  "  the  real 
aim  and  content  of  his  life  (!)  ;  it  is  seen  in  advance,  and 
everything  works  up  to  it,  so  that  the  entire  gospel  is 
really  a  story  of  the  Passion  stretching  backwards " 
(p.  132).  Moreover,  the  chronological  frame  in  which 
Mark  encloses  the  details  of  the  life  of  Jesus  is  "  neither 
historical  nor  chronological,  but  didactic.  Galilee  is  the 
life,  and  Jerusalem  is  the  death ;  the  passage  from 
Nazareth  to  Golgotha  is  the  unavailing  work  among 
Israel  and  the  prospect  of  the  believing  heathens  of  the 
future ;  that  the  actions  of  Jesus  in  Israel  did  not  bring 
salvation  to  that  people,  but  that  salvation  is  found  in  the 
mystery  of  his  death  for  those  who  acknowledge  and 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  157 

believe — those  are  the  great  ideas  which  he  spreads  like 
a  net  over  his  variegated  material "  (p.  136). 

Even  when  the  evangelist  offers  us  ostensible  history, 
we  do  not  feel  confident  about  what  he  describes. 
"  Chronology  is  his  weak  point."  "  He  has  no  idea  of 
the  duration  of  the  activity  of  Jesus  "  [in  the  year  64  !]. 
For  him  to  make  Jesus,  the  pious  Jew,  come  to  Jeru- 
salem for  the  first  time  at  the  Passover  is,  according  to 
Weiss,  "a  really  childish  idea."  He  gives  nothing  in 
chronological  order.  We  never  find  a  date  that  might 
serve  to  fix  any  event  in  point  of  time.  And  it  is  not 
much  better  with  his  indications  of  places.  It  is  true 
that  he  knows  the  names  of  a  few  places,  and  often 
represents  a  situation  as  known  to  his  readers;  but  his 
indications  are  generally  so  superficial  and  vague  (a 
house,  a  mountain,  a  solitary  place,  and  so  on)  that 
the  historian  can  make  no  more  of  them  than  he  could 
of  the  stage-directions  of  a  play.  "  His  geographical 
notions  are,"  says  Weiss,  "  confined  to  a  few  large 
divisions — Galilee,  Persea,  Judaea,  the  '  sea '  of  Galilee, 
etc.  But  it  is  clear,  from,  for  instance,  the  section  that 
deals  with  the  two  miraculous  meals,  that  he  has  no  idea 
of  the  localities.  To  represent  Jesus  moving  about  the 
sea,  suddenly  appearing  in  the  region  of  Tyre  and  Sidon, 
and  then  to  the  east  of  the  sea  again,  shows  that  the 
writer  has  no  idea  of  the  topography  of  the  country" 
(p.  137).  "The  topographical  ideas  of  the  evangelist  are 
confused,"  we  read  in  his  Das  dlteste  Evangelium.  "  He 
does  not  take  the  least  interest  in  such  things ;  he  is  indif- 
ferent to  time  and  place"  (p.  235).  Weiss  naturally 
complains  of  this  vagueness  as  to  time  and  place  which 
is  so  conspicuous  in  this  evangelist  (p.  151).  Wellhausen 
speaks  in  the  same  way,  and  even  more  disdainfully, 
of  the  author  of  the  oldest  gospel.1 

But   the   other   two   synoptics   are   no  better  in  this 

1  Einleitung,    p.   51.      Compare    also    the    Commentar    zu    den    vie 
Evangelien  of  P.  van  Dyk  (S.  E.  Verus),  Leipzig,  1902,  Kap.  8  and  9. 


158  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

respect.  At  least  we  might  have  expected  more  of  Luke, 
who  expressly  describes  himself  as  an  "  historian  "  in  the 
foreword  to  his  gospel.  Unfortunately,  it  is  not  so.  The 
phrases  "  In  those  days,"  "  At  that  time,"  "  On  a  Sabbath 
day,"  " After  eight  days,"  "At  the  same  hour,"  etc.,  are 
just  as  common  with  him ;  and  when  he  does  seem  to 
give  definite  indications  of  time — for  instance,  "  In  the 
days  of  King  Herod,"  "At  the  time  of  the  enumeration 
under  the  governor  Cyrenius,"  "When  Lysanias  the 
tetrarch  was  at  Abilene,  and  every  man  had  to  be 
numbered " — we  find  him  historically  inaccurate  in 
every  case.  Herod  had  died  four  years  before  the 
beginning  of  the  present  era.  Cyrenius  was  not  governor 
until  the  years  7-11  A.D.  Lysanias  had  been  dead 
thirty-four  years  at  the  time  when  Jesus  was  born. 
Annas  and  Caiaphas  could  not  be  high-priests  together, 
as  there  was  only  one  high-priest  at  a  time.  The 
description  of  the  Pharisees  is  wrong  in  Luke  and  all 
the  other  evangelists.  The  trial  which  ended  in  the 
condemnation  of  Jesus  does  not  correspond  at  all  to 
Jewish  usage  at  the  time.1  Nothing  is  known  by  any 
historian  of  a  friendship  between  Herod  and  Pilate,  such 
as  Luke  (xxiii,  12)  describes.  It  is  true  that  we  know 
that  Pilate  was  procurator  in  Judaea  in  the  fifteenth  year 
of  the  Emperor  Tiberius  (28).  But  the  character  of 
Pilate,  as  described  in  Luke  and  the  other  evangelists, 
is  entirely  opposed  to  all  that  we  know  of  the  man ;  and 
it  is  not  certain  that  we  have  not  here  an  astral  myth,  in 
which  the  Homo  pilatus  (the  javelin-man  Orion)  played  a 
part,  converted  into  history  on  the  strength  of  a  similarity 
of  name  with  the  Koman  procurator  Pilate,  and  that  the 
whole  story  was  not  on  this  account  placed  in  the  time  of 
the  first  two  Koman  emperors.  It  can  be  detached  from 
that  period  without  suffering  any  essential  change.  In 
essence  it  is  independent  of  time,  as  myths  are.  This  is 

1  Brandt,  Die  evangel.  Geschichte  ;  Stcudel,  Im  Kampf  um  die  Christus- 
mythe,  pp.  42  and  53. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  159 

strikingly  confirmed  by  the  statement  of  St.  Augustine1 
that  Jesus  died  on  March  25  under  the  consulate  of  the 
two  Gemini  (29).  The  death  of  Christ  falls,  according  to 
the  calculations  of  Niemojewski,  on  March  25  (during 
the  vernal  equinox),  when  the  new  moon  dies  in  the 
constellation  of  the  Heavenly  Twins — in  Latin,  Gemini.3 
There  are  many  other  details  in  the  gospels  which  point 
to  the  fact  that  astral  relations  are  at  the  root  of  the 
supposed  historical  events  which  they  describe. 

In  any  case,  the  narrative  of  the  gospels  is  not  of  a 
nature  to  exclude  the  possibility  that  dogmatic  and 
metaphysical  material,  which  originated  in  a  totally 
different  province,  was  afterwards  worked  into  an  his- 
torical scheme,  and  that  this  was  done  at  a  time  when 
the  real  features  of  Palestine  in  the  days  of  Jesus  were 
very  superficially  known  to  the  author,  and  by  one  who 
had  not  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the  geographical  and 
chronological  conditions.  From  this  we  know  what  to 
think  when  von  Soden  and  others  speak  of  the  "  graphic 
miniature  painting  "  and  "  smell  of  the  soil  of  Palestine  " 
in  the  gospel  narratives,  and  when  Julicher  assures  us 
that  Jesus  is  "  a  human  personality  that  could  not  possibly 
have  been  in  any  other  time  and  place  than  those  in 
which  he  is  put  in  the  gospels,"  and  emphasises  his  being 
"  rooted  in  Jewish  soil."  It  is  much  the  same  as  if  a  man 
were  to  say  that  Komeo  and  Juliet  were  real  characters 
which  could  not  have  existed  elsewhere  but  in  Verona, 
in  medieval  Italy,  where  Shakespeare  places  them. 
Augustine  is  nearer  the  truth  when  he  confesses  :  "  Were 
it  not  for  the  authority  of  the  Church,  I  should  put  no 
faith  in  the  gospels." 

We  may  dispense  ourselves  from  considering  more 
closely  the  much-praised  "pictorial  character"  of  the 
gospels  and  examining  the  proof  of  the  historicity  of 
Jesus  that  is  based  on  it.  The  description  in  the  gospels 

1  De  civitate  Dei,  xviii,  54. 

2  Niemojewski,  Gott  Jesus,  pp.  131,  371,  382,  384. 


160  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

may  be  pictorial,  but  it  is  not  more  so  than  any  description 
which  aims  at  giving  a  sensible  form  to  a  certain  idea  by 
artificial  means.  If  we  admitted  this  as  an  argument  for 
the  Biblical  Jesus,  we  should  have  to  accept  the  characters 
and  situations  of  many  novels,  dramas,  and  other  works  of 
fiction  as  historical  realities.  Moreover,  the  vividness  of 
the  gospels  is  only  found  in  situations  and  sensations,  not 
in  depicting  characters ;  the  character  of  Jesus  by  no 
means  merits  that  description,  on  account  of  the  contra- 
dictions it  includes,  and  there  is  no  consistent  and 
progressive  treatment  in  the  gospels.  In  this  respect 
Lublinski  has  very  well  described  the  style  of  the  gospels 
as  an  "impressionist  lyrical  al  fresco  style":  "Great 
stress  is  laid  on  certain  scenes,  while  all  the  rest  lies  in 
a  darkly-coloured  background.  That  kind  of  description 
would  be  curious  and  incongruous,  in  fact  unprecedented, 
if  there  were  question  of  a  biography.  But  as  the  aim  is 
to  represent  a  god  in  his  superhuman  splendour,  no  happier 
style  could  have  been  chosen.  The  god  must  not  come 
too  close  to  ourselves,  otherwise  he  loses  his  altitude,  yet 
not  be  too  far  from  us,  otherwise  he  would  not  have 
assumed  human  form  for  the  redemption  of  sinners. 
The  best  course  is  to  bring  him  out  in  some  of  his 
actions  and  situations  with  sudden  and  magical  power, 
and  then  allow  him  to  sink  back  again.  Thus  we  get  the 
transfiguration  scene,  the  scene  on  Golgotha,  the  entry 
into  Jerusalem,  the  arrest,  the  crucifixion,  and  the 
resurrection.  We  hear  strong,  angry  words  and  others 
full  of  tenderness  and  pity,  which  similarly  break  upon 
us  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  in  seemingly  indifferent 
passages.  At  other  times  lofty  moral  sentiments  are 
pronounced,  and  these  in  turn  have  to  retire  behind  the 
glamour  of  mystic  words  spoken  at  the  last  supper  or 
after  the  resurrection  and  apocalyptic  visions.  These 
details  are  not  given  in  logical  order  and  in  the  quiet 
course  of  a  sustained  narrative,  but  with  a  certain  sudden- 
ness ;  just  as,  when  one  is  travelling  in  a  mountainous 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  161 

district,  every  turn  of  the  road  presents  new  aspects 
and  wonders  of  the  landscape.  But  the  character 
that  produces  these  effects,  now  humanly  approaching  us 
and  now  fading  into  the  mystical  distance,  would  not  be 
found  a  definite  personality  if  his  psychology  and  conduct 
were  considered  from  the  biographical  point  of  view.  As 
a  symbol  and  god-man,  however,  he  could  not  have  been 
better  described." 

(b)  The  Mythical  Character  of  the  Gospels. — We  have 
further  to  consider  the  resemblance  of  the  figure  of  Jesus 
to  the  saviour-gods  of  pagan  peoples,  which  theologians 
do  not  contest,  and  the  resemblance  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  redemption  and  details  of  the  cult  to  those  of 
the  mystical  cults  in  ancient  times.2  We  can  quite 
understand  when  the  theologians,  under  the  lead  of 
Harnack,  regard  the  relevant  research  in  comparative 
religion  with  great  distrust  and  concern,  and  that  in  this 
respect  they  warn  us  to  proceed  with  extreme  "  prudence."8 
But  all  that  they  have  said  as  yet  against  the  possible 

1  Das  werdende  Dogma,  p.  39. 

2  See  Arnold  Meyer,  Inwiefern  sind  die  neutestamentl.   Vorstellungen 
von  ausserbiblischen  Eeligionen  beeinflusst,  1910. 

3  How  theologians  go  to  work  may  be  seen  in  a  pamphlet  by  Harnack 
on  Christmas,  in  which  it  is  said  that  the  Christmas-story  is  "  not  a 
mythology,  but  a  lofty  legend,  comprising  historical  and  religious  facts 
and  experiences  in  very  fine  images."     One  is  tempted  to  ask  the  dis- 
tinguished writer  what  there  is  in  the  story  that  is  not  mythical.     Is  it 
the  child-bearing  of  "  Mary  "  at  "Bethlehem  "  at  the  time  of  the  great 
"census"?     Or  the  shepherds  on  the  fields,  to  whom  an  angel  announces 
the  birth  of  the  Saviour,  and  their  veneration  of  the  "  son  of  David  "  ?     Or 
the   story   of  the   announcement  of  the   birth  of   the  Baptist  ?     Or  the 
massacre  of  the  children  ?     Or  the  presentation  of  the  child  in  the  temple  ? 
Or — but  Harnack  at  last  tells  us  :  the  story  of  the  star  and  the  wise  men 
from  the  east !     "  Here  we  have  an  ancient  myth  reproduced  and  applied 
to  Jesus  Christ,  but  " — he  at  once  soothes  his  readers — "how  rich  the  story 
is  !     At  that  time  many  ancient  religions  were  pressing  from  the  east  into 
the  Roman  Empire ;  they  were,  to  some  extent,  deeper  and  richer  than 
the  Grseco-Roman,  and  therefore  had  many  followers.     Our  story  shows 
us  the  wise  men  from  the  east — that  is  to  say,  those  oriental  religions  [!]  — 
bowing  down  before  the  wonderful  star  that  had  arisen  over  Bethlehem, 
and  bringing  gifts  to  the  new-born  child.     And  so  it  actually  came  to 
pass  !     History  has  fulfilled  and  confirmed  the  myth  in  a  wonderful  way 
[sic].     The  oriental  religions  brought  gifts  to  the  Christian,  and  then 
paled  before  its  light."     Thus  speaks  "Dr.  Adolf  Harnack,  ordinary  Pro- 
fessor at  the  University  of  Berlin."    We  now  know  how  to  give  a  "really 
scientific  "  interpretation  of  myths. 

M 


162  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

derivation  of  the  Christ-story  from  the  pagan  myths  is  so 
lame  and  biassed  that  it  is  difficult  to  keep  patience  in 
discussing  such  things  with  them.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  notion  of  a  suffering  and  dying  God.  The  Christ- 
Myth  has  shown  how  familiar  this  idea  was  to  Judaism 
from  its  own  tradition — how  the  notion  of  a  suffering 
king  and  just  one,  offering  himself  for  the  sins  of  his 
fellows,  was  based  on  a  very  ancient  rite  in  the  whole 
early  world,  which  has  left  traces  even  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. A  man  must  be  utterly  devoid  of  psychology  and 
be  a  worshipper  of  the  letter  to  doubt  that  the  idea  must 
have  had  adherents  among  the  Jews  even  in  the  days  of 
Jesus  merely  because  we  have  no  direct  evidence  of  it  in 
writing.  And  what  a  decisive  part  the  idea  plays  in  the 
Gnostic  systems !  Nor  can  it  any  longer  be  disputed 
that  Gnosticism  was  not,  as  was  hitherto  generally 
believed,  a  product  of  Christianity,  but  is  much  older  than 
Christianity.1  In  the  second  century  the  Talmud  expressly 
sets  forth  the  idea  of  a  Messiah  suffering  in  atonement 
for  his  people.  It  would  be  surprising  if,  in  the  circum- 
stances, the  belief  in  a  suffering  and  dying  saviour-god 
had  not  been  found  among  the  Jews  at  an  earlier  date. 
As  we  shall  see  more  fully,  the  idea  had  been  impressed 
on  them  by  Isaiah  (ch.  liii).  The  ancient  Babylonian 
idea  of  a  divinity  coming  down  from  heaven  and  soiling 
himself  with  earthly  material  for  the  purpose  of  saving 
mankind  was  bound  to  imply  suffering  and  death, 
especially  among  a  people  of  strong  religious  feelings, 
surrounded  by  the  suffering  and  dying  gods  of  neigh- 
bouring peoples,  in  the  close  atmosphere  and  mysticism 
of  sectarian  life. 

Opinions  may  differ  as  to  the  way  and  the  extent  in 
which  Christian  ideas,  especially  the  gospel  narratives, 
were  influenced  by  the  analogous  myths  and  ceremonies 
of  non-Christian  religions — whether  the  influence  was 

1  See  M.  Bruckner,  Der  sterbende  und  auferstehende  Gottliciland  in  den 
Orient- Religionen  und  ihr  VerMltniss  zum  Christentum,  1908,  p.  30. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  163 

direct  or  indirect,  and  whether  the  analogies  were  merely 
accidental  or  were,  as  some  credulous  writers  affirm, 
divinely  appointed.  The  Christ-Myth  refrained  from 
taking  up  any  definite  position  on  this  point.  It  was 
generally  content  to  tell  the  facts  and  let  them  speak  for 
themselves,  in  order  to  justify  its  theory  that  Jesus  also 
may  have  been  one  form  of  the  myth,  and  the  "  history  " 
of  him  may  have  been  derived  from  the  same  mythic 
material  as  that  of  the  pagan  saviour-gods.  It  stimulated 
questions,  and  drew  attention  to  points  which  might 
contribute  to  the  elucidation  of  obscure  passages  in  the 
gospels.  If  it  has  been  misunderstood  and  represented  as 
saying  that  on  all  points  the  Christian  ideas  were  depen- 
dent on  the  non-Christian  world,  or  as  speaking  of  a 
"composition"  of  the  story  of  Jesus  from  the  analogous 
myths  of  pagan  religions,  the  author  is  not  to  blame,  and 
does  not  need  to  be  told  that  analogies  do  not  of  them- 
selves prove  historical  connection. 

This  much,  at  least,  is  certain  :  the  origin  of  Chris- 
tianity cannot  be  properly  understood  without  regard  to 
the  mythological  connections  of  its  ideas  with  those  of 
other  religions.  In  this  respect  research  is  only  just  in 
its  infancy,  as  up  to  the  present  there  has  been  almost 
nothing  but  purely  historical  and  philological  work  done 
in  this  field,  and  biblical  "  mythology,"  which  has  had 
an  able  and  far-seeing  exponent  in  Nork,  has  been  thrust 
into  the  background.  While  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson  has 
led  the  way  and  made  considerable  advance  in  England 
in  his  Christianity  and  Mythology,  Pagan  Christs,  and 
Short  History  of  Christianity,  the  science  of  religion  in 
Germany  remains  wholly  under  the  influence  of  theology, 
and  is  mainly  concerned  to  avoid  a  conflict  with  theology. 
Hence  on  the  theological  side  we  find  men  contesting  the 
obvious  affinity  of  the  Easter-story  of  the  gospels  with 
the  myths  and  ceremonies  of  the  Attis-Adonis-Osiris 
religion,  saying  that  "  there  is  no  such  thing  "  as  a  burial 
and  resurrection  in  the  myths  of  Attis  and  Adonis,  and 


164  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

that  the  difference  between  the  death  of  Jesus  and  that 
of  his  Asiatic  kindred  can  only  be  explained  by  the 
"  hard  fact" — the  famous  theological  bed-rock — of  the 
death  on  the  cross.  Weiss  is  unable  to  recognise  in 
Mary  Magdalen  and  the  other  Marys  at  the  cross  and 
the  grave  of  the  Saviour  the  Indian,  Asiatic,  and 
Egyptian  mother  of  the  gods,  the  Maia,  Mariamma,  or 
Maritala,  as  the  mother  of  Krishna  is  called,  the 
Mariana  of  Mariandynium  (Bithynia),  Mandane,  the 
mother  of  the  "  Messiah "  Cyrus  (Isaiah  xlv,  1),  the 
"  great  mother  "  of  Pessinunt,1  the  sorrowing  Semiramis, 
Miriam,  Merris,  Myrrha,  Maira  (Msera),  and  Maia,2  the 
"  beloved  "  of  her  son.  Weiss,  however,  does  not  question 
that  "  the  belief  in  a  dead  and  risen  Christ  has,  in  general 
outline,  considered  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  science 
of  religion,  a  similar  structure  to  these  cult-myths,  though 
the  details  are  altogether  different  "  (p.  39).  As  if  there 
were  any  question  about  the  details  as  such  !  Whether, 
for  instance,  the  traditional  number,  "  after  three  days," 
in  the  account  of  the  resurrection  has  been  chosen  on 
astral  grounds,  and  is  related  to  the  three  winter  months 
from  the  shortest  day,  when  the  sun  dies,  to  the  vernal 
equinox,  when  it  triumphs  definitively  over  the  winter, 
and  so  the  months  are  condensed  into  three  days  in  the 
myth,3  or  whether  the  moon  has  furnished  the  data  for 

1  See  The  Christ-Myth,  pp.  53  and  78. 

2  The  mother  of  the  "  world-saviour  "  Augustus,  who  is  generally  known 
as  Attia,  is  also  called  Maia  in  Horace  and  on  an  inscription  at  Lyons 
("  Maia' s  winged  child"),  and  she  is  supposed  to  have  brought  her  son 
into  the  world  in  a  remarkable  way  and  under  astonishing  circumstances. 
The  name  was  a  standing  name  for  the  mothers  of  the  saviour-gods  of 
antiquity,  and  it  is  naive  to  regard  it  as  the  real  name  of  the  historical 
Jesus. 

8  Weiss  denies  that  the  three  days  could  be  taken  from  the  course  of 
the  sun,  as  the  sun  is  never  buried  for  three  days  and  three  nights.  But 
Heracles  is  said,  according  to  the  scholiast  of  Lycophron  (Cassandra,  33), 
to  have  remained  three  days  in  the  belly  of  the  sea-monster,  and  to  have 
escaped  with  the  loss  of  his  hair,  which  clearly  points  to  the  rays  of  the 
sun.  The  somewhat  similar  Jason  also,  the  Greek  counterpart  of  the 
biblical  Joshua,  whose  solar  nature  is  beyond  question,  is  said  to  have 
been  swallowed  by  the  dragon  and  spat  out  again.  The  biblical  Jonah, 
whose  name  means  "dove,"  and  points  to  the  reverence  of  the  Ninevites 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  165 

the  three  days  and  three  nights,  as  it  is  invisible  for  that 
period,  and,  as  so  often  happens  in  myths,  the  moon  and 
the  sun  have  been  blended,  we  need  not  consider  here. 
Possibly  the  number  may  be  explained  by  the  popular 
belief  in  Persia  and  Judaea  that  the  soul  remains  three 
days  and  nights  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  body,  only 
departing  to  its  place  on  the  fourth  morning.  Possibly, 
again,  the  number  was  determined  by  Hosea  vi,  2,  where 
we  read  :  "  After  two  days  will  he  revive  us ;  in  the  third 
day  he  will  raise  us  up."  In  any  case,  when  there  are 
so  many  possible  explanations,  we  have  no  convincing 
reason  to  regard  the  account  in  the  gospels  as  historical, 
and  to  say  with  Weiss  that  the  third  day  was  chosen 
"  because  something  of  importance  [szc]  had  happened 
on  it"  (p.  36). 

There  is  very  little  force  in  the  other  objections  of 
theologians  to  the  astral  explanation  of  the  day  of  the 
death  of  Jesus.  It  is  true  that  the  day  of  the  vernal 
equinox  is  at  least  fourteen  days  before  the  Passover, 
which  is  celebrated  at  the  full  moon  after  the  beginning 
of  spring.  I  may  recall,  however,  the  very  common 
combination  of  sun  and  moon-worship  in  myths.  Niemo- 
jewski  has  proved  that  a  moon-myth  is  at  the  base  of 
Luke's  astral  system.  Moreover,  we  may  very  well 
suspect  that,  on  account  of  the  symbolism  of  the  Paschal 
lamb,  the  Christians  have  tampered  with  the  calendar. 
That  the  mythic-astral  method  "  breaks  down  altogether  " 

for  doves,  seems  also  to  have  been  originally  a  sun-god  and  related  to 
Heracles,  or,  rather,  to  the  sun-god  Perseus  and  Joshua.  In  Jaffa,  from 
which  Jonah  is  supposed  to  have  set  out  for  Tarsis,  there  were  still  shown 
in  the  days  of  Pomponius  Mela  certain  large  bones  of  the  fish  that  had 
tried  to  swallow  Andromeda  whom  Perseus  delivered  (consider  the  similar 
liberation  of  Hesione  by  Heracles)  ;  and  the  dove  was,  according  to  Assyrian 
ideas,  the  wife  of  Ninus  (that  is  to  say,  the  fish),  who  appears  in  the  Old 
Testament,  under  the  name  of  Nun,  as  the  father  of  Joshua.  In  fact,  the 
connection  of  the  Christ-form  with  these  pagan  sun-gods  is  clearly  seen  in 
the  ceremony  performed  on  December  26  in  the  Church  of  Sta.  Maria  di 
Carmine  at  Naples,  in  which  the  hair  is  cut  off  the  figure  of  the  crucified 
with  great  solemnity.  Compare  also  the  three  (winter)  months  and  five 
days  during  which  Joseph  is  said,  according  to  the  "  Testament  of  the 
Twelve  Patriarchs,"  to  have  dwelt  in  the  under- world  (Christ-Myth,  I,  46). 


166  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

in  face  of  the  time  of  the  death  of  Jesus,  as  Weiss  says, 
is  not  true  at  all,  and  before  we  consent  to  regard  Sunday 
the  15-16  of  Nisan  as  the  day  of  the  resurrection, 
"because  on  that  day  something  of  importance  [sic] 
happened  to  the  first  disciples"  (p.  38),  we  have  to  settle 
the  chronological  confusion  that  we  find  in  regard  to  the 
date  of  the  death  of  Jesus,  which  no  one  yet  has  succeeded 
in  doing. 

In  fine,  we  may  ask,  as  some  reader  of  The  Christ- 
Myth  did,  if  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  really 
took  place  at  the  Jewish  Easter,  why  was  the  day  not 
fixed  once  for  all  instead  of  changing  with  the  date 
of  Easter?  If  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  crucified  on  a 
certain  day  and  "  rose  again  on  a  certain  day,  and  if 
the  Pentecostal  gathering  took  place  in  Jerusalem  forty 
days  after  the  resurrection,  these  days  ought  to  have  been 
fixed.  It  is  useless  to  say  that  the  festivals  of  the  Church 
were  only  fixed  at  a  later  date.  That  may  be  true  of 
Christmas,  etc.,  but  not  of  the  day  of  the  death  and 
resurrection,  which,  together  with  Pentecost,  were  days 
of  incomparable  importance  for  Christians  from  the  very 
first.  These  definite  days  ought  to  have  been  celebrated 
everywhere  by  Christians  with  great  solemnity,  either 
joyous  or  mournful.  There  could  not  possibly  be  a  doubt 
as  to  which  dates  were  to  be  celebrated.  The  fact  that 
the  Jewish  calendar  had  movable  feasts  does  not  affect 
the  matter ;  Paul  ought  at  least  to  have  given  his  Greeks 
and  Komans  a  definite  date  to  celebrate.  The  Church 
professes  to  know  quite  accurately  the  day  on  which 
Peter  and  Paul  were  crucified  at  Home."  How  has  it 
failed  to  fix  vastly  more  important  dates?  As  long  as 
theologians  can  give  us  no  satisfactory  answer  to  this 
question  we  prefer  to  think  that  we  are  dealing,  not  with 
history,  but  with  a  myth  to  which  an  historical  form  was 
afterwards  given. 

Critical  theologians  have  hitherto  affirmed  the  his- 
toricity of  the  gospel  narratives,  but  they  have  landed  in 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  167 

insuperable  difficulties  and  insoluble  contradictions ;  so 
poor,  not  to  say  purely  negative,  a  result  amounts  to  a 
bankruptcy  of  their  whole  method.  It  seems,  therefore, 
to  be  our  duty  to  try  the  mythic-symbolic  method,  and  to 
consider  the  gospels  from  the  point  of  view  that  their 
Jesus  was  not  an  historical,  but  a  purely  mythical,  per- 
sonage. The  literary  quality  of  the  gospels,  their  tenden- 
tious dogmatic-metaphysical  character,  their  chronological 
and  topographical  vagueness,  their  constant  absence  of 
definite  indications  of  space  and  time  in  regard  to  events, 
the  slender  traces  of  an  apparently  historical  and  geo- 
graphical framework,  the  resemblance  of  their  most 
important  details  to  the  myths  of  non-Christian  religions 
— a  resemblance  that  often  extends  to  the  smallest  points 
— all  this  demands  that  we  shall  study  the  gospels  from 
a  very  different  point  of  view  from  that  hitherto  adopted. 

The  fundamental  idea  of  The  Christ-Myth  is  that 
their  historical  character  is  only  a  symbolic  clothing  of 
their  real  content. 

Why  this  method  is  less  sound  than  the  historical 
method  followed  by  theologians,  less  "scientific" — in 
fact,  no  real  method  at  all — is,  in  the  circumstances,  not 
very  obvious.  It  is  quite  certain,  and  will  be  questioned 
by  no  one,  that  the  gospels  contain  a  large  amount  of 
legendary  matter,  and  that  a  good  deal  in  them  is  to  be 
understood  mystically  or  symbolically.  It  is  not  at  all 
equally  well  established  that  they  have  an  historical  basis. 
The  idea  is  grounded  solely  on  the  feeble  tradition  of 
Papias.  What  is  there  to  prevent  us,  therefore,  or  what 
methodological  principle  restrains  us,  from  extending  the 
mythic-symbolical  interpretation  to  the  whole  contents  of 
the  gospels,  and  refusing  them  any  kind  of  historical 
reality  ?  In  Homer's  Iliad  there  is  much  that  seems  at 
first  sight  to  be  historical  and  real,  yet  no  one  has 
attempted  to  see  in  the  Iliad  an  historical  document, 
and  to  extract  its  "  historical  nucleus "  by  means  of 
criticism  and  exegesis  from  the  mythical  and  poetical 


168 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


shell.  It  is  possible  that  The  Christ-Myth  is  wrong  in 
its  analysis  of  the  gospel  story  into  myths ;  but  in  that 
case  its  failure  will  only  bring  out  more  brilliantly  the 
historical  character  of  the  gospels,  so  that,  instead  of 
scolding  us,  the  believers  in  an  historical  Jesus  ought  to 
be  grateful  that  we  have  relieved  them  of  their  thankless 
and  uncongenial  task.  Our  opponents  complain  that  our 
procedure  is  actuated  by  the  secret  hope  that  there  never 
was  an  historical  Jesus.  The  truth  is  that  it  is  their 
own  exertions  which  are  inspired  by  the  opposite  hope. 
Would  theologians  ask  us  to  believe  that  they  approach 
the  problem  impartially  ?  Must  we  be  dubbed  unscien- 
tific because  we  take  no  interest  in  their  historical  Jesus  ? 
Let  us  avoid  pretence,  and  have  respect  for  truth.  To 
science  as  such  it  is  wholly  immaterial  whether  there 
ever  was  a  Jesus  or  no.  It  has  no  advantage  in  approach- 
ing the  question  of  his  historicity  either  from  the  positive 
or  the  negative  standpoint.  It  is  theology  alone  that 
has  an  interest  in  regarding  the  positive  standpoint  as 
necessary,  and  in  coming  to  an  affirmative  solution  of  the 
problem.  This,  however,  is  not  a  scientific,  but  a  religious 
or  ecclesiastical,  interest ;  and  therefore  all  their  talk 
about  their  "scientific  procedure"  and  all  their  disdain 
of  their  opponents'  methods  are  interested  manoeuvres. 
It  is  ridiculous  for  theologians  to  tell  the  laity  that 
"  science "  has  "  proved "  the  historicity  of  Jesus,  and 
"historical  research"  has  established  the  "fact"  of  his 
existence.  We  cannot  repeat  too  often :  The  science  of 
history  has  up  to  the  present  taken  no  notice  of  the 
problem.  Theology  is  not  science,  and,  strictly  speaking, 
does  not  merit  the  name  of  science  at  all,  because,  in 
spite  of  its  formal  scientific  procedure,  it  rests,  in  the 
long  run,  on  faith. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  169 

7.— THE  MYTHIC-SYMBOLIC  INTERPRETATION  OF 
THE  GOSPELS. 

(a)  The  Suffering  and  Exaltation  of  the  Messiah. — The 
mythic-symbolic  interpretation  of  the  gospels  sees  in 
Isaiah  liii  the  germ-cell  of  the  story  of  Jesus,  the 
starting-point  of  all  that  is  related  of  him,  the  solid 
nucleus  round  which  all  the  rest  has  crystallised. 

The  prophet  deals  with  the  "  servant  of  Jahveh,"  who 
voluntarily  submits  to  suffering  in  order  to  expiate  the 
sin  and  guilt  of  the  people : — 

He  is  despised  and  rejected  of  men,  a  man  of  sorroivs, 
and  acquainted  with  grief ;  and  we  hid  as  it  were  our 
faces  from  him  ;  he  was  despised,  and  we  esteemed  him 
not. 

Surely  he  hath  borne  our  griefs  and  carried  our  sorrows  ; 
yet  we  did  esteem  him  stricken,  smitten  of  God,  and 
afflicted. 

But  he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  he  was 
bruised  for  our  iniquities ;  the  chastisement  of  our  peace 
was  upon  him,  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed. 

All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray ;  we  have  turned 
every  one  to  his  own  way  ;  and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  him 
the  iniquity  of  us  all. 

He  was  oppressed,  and  he  was  afflicted,  yet  he  opened 
not  his  mouth ;  he  is  brought  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter, 
and  as  a  sheep  before  her  shearers  is  dumb,  so  he  openeth 
not  his  mouth. 

He  was  taken  from  prison  and  from  judgment ;  and 
who  shall  declare  his  generation  ?  for  he  was  cut  off  out 
of  the  land  of  the  living,  for  the  transgression  of  my 
people  was  he  stricken. 

And  he  made  his  grave  ivith  the  wicked,  and  with  the  rich 
[evildoers]  in  his  death ;  because  he  had  done  no  violence, 
neither  was  any  deceit  in  his  mouth. 

Yet  it  pleased  the  Lord  to  bruise  him  ;  he  hath  put 
him  to  grief ;  when  thou  shalt  make  his  soul  an  offering 
for  sin,  he  shall  see  his  seed,  he  shall  prolong  his  days, 
and  the  pleasure  of  the  Lord  shall  prosper  in  his  hand. 

He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul,  and  shall  be 
satisfied ;  by  his  knowledge  shall  my  righteous  servant 
justify  many ;  for  he  shall  bear  their  iniquities. 

Therefore  will  I  divide  him  a  portion  with  the  great, 


170  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

and  he  shall  divide  the  spoil  with  the  strong  ;  because  he 
hath  poured  out  his  soul  unto  death  ;  and  lie  was  numbered 
with  the  transgressors  ;  and  he  bare  the  sin  of  many,  and 
made  intercession  for  the  transgressors. 

The  general  belief  is  that  there  is  here  question  of  the 
sufferings  of  Israel  in  the  interest  of  the  whole  of  mankind. 
According  to  Gunkel  and  Gressmann,  however,  the  idea 
of  the  suffering  just  man  is  joined  to  an  allusion  to  the 
god  who  expiates  the  sins  of  men  by  his  voluntary  death. 
Certainly  we  detect  in  it  all  the  essential  features  of  the 
suffering  Christ,  sacrificing  himself  for  mankind  and 
expiating  their  sins.  That  the  early  Christians  felt  this 
we  see  in  Mark  ix,  12,  and  xv,  28 ;  Matt,  viii,  17  and 
xxvi,  23;  1  Peter  ii,  21;  and  Acts  viii,  28-35,  where  the 
words  of  the  prophet  are  expressly  applied  to  Jesus. 

Isaiah  liii  speaks  of  the  "griefs  "  of  the  just  one.  But 
Plato,  who  also  has  described,  in  his  Bepublic,  the  perse- 
cutions and  sufferings  that  befall  the  just  man,  makes  him 
be  scourged,  tortured,  cast  in  prison,  and  finally  pilloried 
("  crucified") j1  and  in  Wisdom  the  godless  deliberate 
about  condemning  the  just  to  a  "  shameful  death." 
According  to  Deuteronomy  (xxi,  23),  there  was  no  more 
shameful  death  than  "  to  hang  on  a  tree"  (in  Greek 
xylon  and  stauros,  in  Latin  crux)  ;  so  that  this  naturally 
occurred  as  the  true  manner  of  the  just  one's  death. 
Then  the  particular  motive  of  the  death  was  furnished 
by  the  passage  in  Wisdom  and  the  idea  of  Plato.  He 
died  as  a  victim  of  the  unjust,  the  godless,  who  say  :— 

Let  us  overpower  the  poor  just  man Let  us  set  snares 

for  the  just,  because  he  is  a  burden  to  us,  and  opposes  our 
deeds,  and  represents  to  us  the  commands  of  the  law.  He 
boasts  that  he  has  a  true  knowledge  of  God,  and  calls 
himself  the  servant  of  God.  He  has  become  unto  us  a 

1  Apollonius  refers  to  the  passage  of  Plato's  Republic  (II,  361)  in  his 
Apology  :  "  For  one  of  the  Greek  philosophers  also  says  :  The  just  man  will 
be  martyred,  spat  upon,  and  at  last  crucified."  The  passage  seems  even  to 
have  been  in  the  mind  of  James  when  he  says :  "  Ye  have  condemned  and 
killed  the  just,  and  he  doth  not  resist  you  "  ;  and  we  read  in  Justin  :  "  Ye 
have  beaten  the  just  "  (Dial.  xvi). 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  171 

living  reproach,  on  account  of  our  desires.  He  is  a  burden 
unto  us,  when  we  do  but  look  on  him,  because  his  ways 
and  his  conduct  are  different  from  those  of  all  others.  Us 
he  regards  as  insincere,  and  he  holds  himself  from  inter- 
course with  us,  as  from  impurities.  But  he  praises  the 
eternity  of  the  just,  and  boasts  that  God  is  his  father.  Let 
us  see  if  his  words  be  true,  and  wait  for  the  manner  of  his 
going  forth.  For  if  the  just  is  a  son  of  God,  God  will  take 
care  of  him,  and  save  him  from  the  hands  of  his  enemies. 
Let  us  put  him  to  the  proof  with  insults  and  evil  treatment, 
so  that  we  may  know  his  meekness  and  prove  his  stead- 
fastness.  Let  us  condemn  him  to  a  shameful  death ;  for, 
according  to  his  words,  he  will  have  protection.  Such 
things  said  they  in  their  madness,  for  their  wickedness 
dazed  them,  and  they  recognised  not  the  mysteries 
of  God. 

These  words  suggest  the  cry  of  the  martyred  and 
reviled  in  the  twenty  -  second  psalm,  whose  torments 
also  recall  the  death  "  on  the  tree  ":— 

My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ? O  my 

God,  I  cry  in  the  daytime,  but  thou  hearest  not I  am 

a  reproach  of  men  and  despised  of  the  people.     All 

they  that  see  me  laugh  me  to  scorn ;  they  shoot  out  the  lip, 
they  shake  the  head,  saying :  He  trusted  in  the  Lord  that 
he  would  deliver  him;  let  him  deliver  him,  seeing  he 

delighted  in  him I  am  poured  out  like  water,  and  all 

my  bones  are  out  of  joint My  strength  [palate]  is  dried 

up  like  a  potsherd  ;  &ndmy  tongue  cleaveth  to  my  jaws 

For  dogs  have  compassed  me,  the  assembly  of  the  wicked 
have  enclosed  me  ;  they  pierced  my  hands  and  my  feet  [like 
the  lion  are  my  hands  and  my  feet] .  I  may  tell  all  my 
bones ;  they  look  and  stare  upon  me.  They  part  my 
garments  among  them,  and  cast  lots  upon  my  vesture. 

It  is  further  said  in  the  book  of  Wisdom  :— 

The  souls  of  the  just  are  in  the  hand  of  God,  and  no 
torment  can  touch  them.  Only  according  to  the  folly  of 
the  unwise  do  they  seem  to  be  dead,  and  their  going  in  is 
counted  a  misfortune,  and  their  going  forth  from  us  for  a 
destruction  ;  but  they  are  at  peace.  For  if  they  have 
been  punished  in  the  eyes  of  men,  their  hope  was  full  of 
the  faith  in  immortality.  And  after  they  have  borne  a 
brief  torture,  they  will  receive  great  rewards ;  for  God  has 
but  tried  them,  and  has  found  them  worthy  of  him.  Like 
gold  in  the  crucible  has  he  tried  them,  and  like  the  gift  of 


172  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

a  whole  offering  has  lie  accepted  them.  And  at  the  time  of 
their  home-coming  they  will  shine  bright,  and  will  pass 
like  sparks  in  the  reed.  They  shall  judge  the  heathen  and 
rule  over  the  peoples,  and  the  Lord  shall  be  their  king  for 
ever.  They  who  trust  in  him  shall  know  the  truth,  and 
the  faithful  will  remain  with  him  in  love.  For  grace  and 
mercy  shall  be  the  part  of  his  elect.  But  the  godless 
shall  be  punished  according  to  their  deeds,  who  despised 
the  just  and  rebelled  against  the  Lord. 

In  these  words  we  clearly  perceive  the  fundamental 
idea  of  the  Christian  mysteries.  The  love  of  the  "  Lord  " 
and  trust  in  him  are  for  the  good  and  just  the  conditions 
of  their  glorious  exaltation  and  an  eternal  life  with  God 
after  death  :  "  For  God  has  created  man  for  immortality, 
and  made  him  in  the  likeness  of  his  own  being.  But 
death  came  into  the  world  through  the  envy  of  the 
devil"  (ii,  23).  Hence  the  wicked  irreclaimably  fall  to 
him,  no  matter  how  long  they  enjoy  life  on  the  earth. 
The  just,  on  the  other  hand,  dies  young  :— 

He  is  withdrawn  from  the  midst  of  sinners In  a 

little  while  he  hath  fulfilled  much  time.  For  his  soul  was 
pleasing  to  the  Lord  ;  therefore  did  he  hasten  to  take  him 

from  the  wicked  world The  just  will  himself  judge  the 

living  godless  after  death,  and  the  early  closed  youth  the 

long  old-age  of  the  unjust For  they  shall  see  the  end 

of  the  wise,  and  shall  not  know  what  he  hath  designed 
concerning  him,  and  why  the  Lord  hath  brought  him  to 
safety.  They  will  see  and  understand  not,  but  of  them- 
selves will  the  Lord  make  sport At  the  reckoning  of 

their  sins  they  shall  stand  shivering,  and  their  trans- 
gressions of  the  law  shall  appear  before  them  as  accusers. 
Then  will  the  just  with  much  confidence  stand  against 
them  that  have  oppressed  him  and  have  slighted  his  needs. 
At  sight  of  him  they  will  be  smitten  with  a  terrible  fear, 
and  will  be  astonished  at  his  unexpected  safety.  They 
will  see  ruefully  to  themselves,  and  in  the  anxiety  of  their 
soul  will  they  moan :  This  was  he  who  once  made  sport 
for  us  and  for  an  object  of  contempt  to  us  fools.  His  life 
we  counted  a  folly,  and  his  end  without  honour.  How, 
then,  was  he  numbered  among  the  sons  of  God  and  hath  a 
possession  among  the  holy  ?  We  have,  therefore,  wandered 
from  the  way  of  wisdom,  and  the  light  of  justice  has  not 
illumined  us,  and  the  sun  has  not  shone  upon  us 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  173 

But  the  just  live  in  eternity,  and  their  reward  is  with  the 
Lord,  and  the  care  of  them  is  with  the  most  high.  There- 
fore will  they  receive  the  kingdom  of  glory  and  the  crown 
of  beauty  from  the  hand  of  the  Lord. 

Since  the  just  is  here  described  in  his  heavenly 
exaltation  as  accuser  and  judge  of  the  godless,  speaking 
judgment  on  them  after  their  death,  it  would  be  curious 
if  in  the  minds  of  the  pious  the  figure  of  the  exalted  just 
did  not  instinctively  blend  with  that  of  the  expected 
Messiah.  It  was  an  essential  element  of  that  expectation 
that  the  Messiah  would  appear  in  heavenly  glory,  and 
judge  Israel  according  to  its  deeds,  condemning  the 
godless  and  taking  the  good  to  eternal  life  in  heaven.  If 
this  happened,  it  would  follow  that  the  Messiah  also 
would  suffer  and  die,  and  by  his  voluntary  death  remove 
the  guilt  of  men,  and  obtain  heavenly  happiness  for  those 
who  love  and  trust  him  and  walk  in  his  footsteps.  It  is 
true  that  Wisdom  refers  the  love  of  the  faithful  to  God. 
But  we  know  how  in  the  Jewish  mind  the  figure  of  the 
Messiah  tended  to  be  identified  with  that  of  Jahveh,  and 
the  "  son  of  God,"  as  the  just  is  called  in  Wisdom,  is  one 
with  his  father,  and  is  in  a  certain  sense  only  another 
name  for  him. 

Read  in  the  prophet  Isaiah  the  important  references 
to  the  coming  lordship  of  the  Messiah  and  mysterious 
indications  of  his  nature :  "  Say  ye  to  the  righteous,  that 
it  shall  be  well  with  him  ;  for  they  shall  eat  the  fruit  of 
their  doings.  Woe  unto  the  wicked ;  it  shall  be  ill  with 
him ;  for  the  reward  of  his  hands  shall  be  given  him  " 
(iii,  10).  That  was  already  contained  in  the  passage  we 
quoted  from  Wisdom  : — 

Behold,  my  servant  shall  deal  prudently,  he  shall  be 
exalted  and  extolled,  and  be  very  high. 

As  many  were  astonied  at  thee ;  his  visage  was  so 
marred  more  than  any  man,  and  his  form  more  than  the 
sons  of  men  ; 

So  shall  he  sprinkle  many  nations ;  the  kings  shall 
shut  their  mouths  at  him.  For  that  which  had  not  been 


174  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

told  them  shall  they  see,  and  that  which  they  had  not 
heard  shall  they  consider.1 

Would  not  that  recall  to  readers  the  astonishment  and 
fear  of  the  godless  at  sight  of  the  exalted  just  as  described 
in  Wisdom  ?  "  And  he  shall  judge  among  the  nations, 
and  shall  rebuke  many  people"  (ii,  4).  The  prophet 
applied  this  to  Jahveh,  but  in  Wisdom  it  is  said  of  the 
just,  who  is  raised  by  God  to  heavenly  glory  after  his 
humiliating  death.  Is  it  possible  to  doubt  that  the  just, 
the  "  servant  of  God  "  in  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  the 
prophet,  was  Jahveh  himself,  or  rather  that  "  son  of 
God,"  in  the  special  sense,  which  the  Messiah  was 
conceived  to  be  ? 

Then  there  are  the  words  of  the  prophet  that  the 
servant  of  God  grew  up  before  Jahveh  "as  a  tender 
plant,  and  as  a  root  out  of  dry  ground"  (lii,  2).  Here 
the  connection  is  quite  obvious,  for  the  eleventh  chapter 
of  Isaiah,  in  which  the  prophet  describes  the  glory  of 
the  Messianic  kingdom  in  especially  impressive  tones, 
began  with  almost  the  same  words :  "  And  there  shall 
come  forth  a  rod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse,  and  a  branch 
shall  grow  out  of  its  roots."  Here  the  servant  of  God  is 
also  described  as  of  the  root  of  David,  as  the  prophet 
Zechariah,  too,  had  said  :  "  Behold  I  will  bring  forth  my 
servant  the  branch"  (iii,  8;  also  see  vi,  12),  leaving 
no  room  for  doubt  that  the  Messiah  is  intended  here. 
Will  it  now  be  said  to  be  impossible  that  the  Jews  had 
blended  the  servant  of  God  in  Isaiah  liii  with  the 
Messiah,  and  had  seen  in  the  passage  a  mysterious 
reference  to  some  preceding  suffering  and  humiliating 
death  of  the  expected  Saviour,  and  thus  Israel's  Saviour 
fell  into  line  with  the  suffering,  dying,  and  rising  gods  of 
the  religions  of  nearer  Asia  ? 

(b)  The  Character  and  Miracles  of  the  Messiah. — Of 
all  these  gods  special  myths  were  related  by  their 

1  Isaiah  lii,  13-15. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  175 

followers.  Their  life-story  was  related,  and  curious 
things  were  said  of  their  origin,  character,  deeds,  etc., 
from  birth  to  death.  Did  the  prophet  who  spoke  of  the 
sufferings,  death,  resurrection,  and  exaltation  of  the 
servant  of  God  give  any  indications  of  this  character  ? 
Bead  the  forty-second  chapter  : — 

Behold  my  servant,  whom  I  uphold ;  mine  elect  in 
whom  my  soul  delighteth ;  I  have  put  my  spirit  upon 
him ;  he  shall  bring  forth  judgment  to  the  Gentiles. 

He  shall  not  cry,  nor  lift  up,  nor  cause  his  voice  to  be 
heard  in  the  street. 

A  bruised  reed  shall  he  not  break,  and  the  smoking  flax 
shall  he  not  quench ;  he  shall  bring  forth  judgment  unto 
truth. 

He  shall  not  fail  nor  be  discouraged,  till  he  have  set 
judgment  in  the  earth  ;  and  the  isles  shall  wait  for  his 
law. 

Thus  the  servant  of  God  is  to  be  wise,  gentle,  tender, 
full  of  endless  pity  for  the  oppressed  and  suffering.  He 
is  indefatigable  in  the  exercise  of  the  office  committed  to 
him  by  God,  and  his  mission  is  to  proclaim  truth  and 
establish  righteousness  on  earth — the  kingdom  of  that 
perfect  righteousness  of  all,  which  is  to  the  prophet  the 
condition  of  the  fulfilment  of  all  that  God  has  promised 
to  his  people  (ch.  Iviii).  In  agreement  with  this  we  read 
in  ch.  1,  4  : — 

The  Lord  God  hath  given  me  the  tongue  of  the  learned, 
that  I  should  know  how  to  speak  a  word  in  season  to  him 
that  is  weary 

The  Lord  God  hath  opened  mine  ear,  and  I  was  not 
rebellious,  neither  turned  away  back. 

I  gave  my  back  to  the  smiters,  and  my  cheeks  to  them 
that  plucked  off  the  hair ;  I  hid  not  my  face  from  shame 
and  spitting. 

For  the  Lord  God  will  help  me,  therefore  shall  I  not  be 
confounded ;  therefore  have  I  set  my  face  like  a  flint,  and 
I  know  that  I  shall  not  be  ashamed. 

Obedience  to  God,  his  father,  trust  in  his  heavenly 
power,  patient  submission  to  his  lot,  not  disturbed  even 
by  the  foulest  maltreatment  and  shame,  are  the  essential 


176 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


features  of  the  servant  of  God.  He  submits  willingly 
to  the  command  of  God,  just  as  the  saviour-gods  and 
redeemers  of  the  pagan  religions  descended  to  earth  at 
the  command  of  their  divine  "  fathers ";  as  the  Baby- 
Ionian  Marduch  was  obedient  to  his  father  Ea ;  as  Heracles, 
the  most  resolute  and  powerful  hero,  nevertheless  bowed 
to  the  command  of  his  heavenly  father  and  undertook 
the  heaviest  labours. 

Now  we  can  also  understand  the  words  of  the  sixty- 
first  chapter : — 

The  spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is  upon  me ;  because  the 
Lord  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  unto  the 
meek;  he  hath  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted,  to 
proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the  opening  of  the 
prison  to  them  that  are  bound ; 

To  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord  and  the 
day  of  vengeance  of  our  God ;  to  comfort  all  that  mourn. 

They  seem  to  be  the  words  of  the  servant  of  God 
himself,  who  reveals  in  them  the  meaning  of  his  Messianic 
task.  He  is  not  sent  to  the  rich  and  fortunate,  but  to 
the  poor  and  miserable ;  he  does  not  come  as  a  powerful 
leader  of  armies,  to  lead  his  followers  "to  victory  over 
their  enemies  ;  but,  like  the  saviour-gods  of  other  peoples, 
he  chiefly  heals  suffering  of  body  and  soul,  and  alleviates 
the  lot  of  the  people,  as  we  read  in  ch.  xxxv,  4  :  "  Behold, 

your  God will  come  and  save  you.  Then  the  eyes  of 

the  blind  shall  be  opened,  and  the  ears  of  the  deaf  shall 
be  unstopped.  Then  shall  the  lame  man  leap  as  an  hart, 
and  the  tongue  of  the  dumb  sing."  And  again  (xxix,  18) : 
"  And  in  that  day  shall  the  deaf  hear  the  words  of  the 
book,  and  the  eyes  of  the  blind  shall  see  out  of  obscurity 
and  out  of  darkness.  The  meek  also  shall  increase  their 
joy  in  the  Lord,  and  the  poor  among  men  shall  rejoice 
in  the  Holy  One  of  Israel." 

To  announce  the  gospel,  the  glad  message  of  the 
realisation  of  salvation,  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  hopes  of 
a  happy  life,  is  the  essential  activity  of  the  servant  of 
God  during  his  life  on  earth.  For  so  speaks  God, 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  177 

Jahveh,  who  spread  out  the  heavens  :  "  I,  Jahveh,  have 
called  thee  in  righteousness,  and  I  will  take  thee  by  the 
hand,  and  will  protect  thee,  and  make  thee  to  represent 
the  covenant  with  the  people  of  Israel,  and  a  light  to 
the  nations,  as  I  open  the  eyes  of  the  blind,  deliver  the 
prisoners  from  their  prison,  and  from  their  captivity 

those  that  sit  in  darkness And  I  will  give  my  glory 

to  none  other,  nor  my  fame  to  the  idols." 

What  a  mysterious  indication  of  the  real  nature  of 
the  servant  of  God !  The  covenant  that  Jahveh  made 
with  Moses  is  renewed  by  him  ;  he  is  therefore  a  second 
Moses.  Nay,  did  not  the  prophet  seem  to  intimate  that 
Jahveh  would  confer  on  him  his  own  glory,  and  does  not 
this  seem  to  imply  his  equality  in  nature  with  Jahveh  ? 
Assuredly  he  was  no  ordinary  man,  this  servant  of  God 
of  the  prophet ;  and  the  hopes  of  the  people  for  the 
kingdom  of  God  would  be  fulfilled  very  differently  from 
what  they  expected,  if  salvation  was  to  be  extended  to 
the  Gentiles  as  well  as  the  Jews.  But  that  the  prophet's 
servant  of  God  is  really  he  for  whom  the  Jewish  people 
longed  is  shown  by  his  marvellous  deeds. 

Thus  we  can  explain  the  miracles  of  Jesus  on  which 
the  critics  have  expended  so  much  fruitless  labour ;  they 
followed  at  once  from  the  above  passages,  the  moment  an 
attempt  was  made  to  give  a  detailed  picture  of  the  life  of 
the  servant  of  God,  and  to  embody  the  intimations  of  the 
prophets  in  impressive  stories.  These  miracles  must  have 
been  performed  by  Jesus  simply  because  they  were  part 
of  the  character  of  the  servant  of  God.  They  serve  as 
evidence  of  his  supernatural  power  and  his  mysterious 
relation  to  Jahveh,  and  they  differ  in  no  respect  from 
the  miracles  which  the  pagans  also  ascribed  to  their 
saviour-gods,  such  as  Asclepios,  Hermes,  Anubis,  etc., 
just  as  the  Old  Testament  had  attributed  them  to  Moses, 
Elijah,  and  Elisha,  and  as,  in  the  common  feeling  of 
ancient  times,  they  were  expected  of  any  outstanding 
man.  Take  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  for  instance. 

N 


178  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

The  prophet  speaks  of  the  curing  of  the  blind,  deaf, 
lame,  and  dumb.  Those  are  precisely  the  miracles  of  the 
gospels.  It  is  true  that  he  does  not  speak  of  raising  the 
dead  to  life  or  driving  out  demons — feats  which  were 
related  of  Asclepios  and  Apollonius.  He  does,  however, 
make  the  servant  of  God  deliver  captives.  But  if  we 
interpret  the  text  with  deeper  insight,  does  it  not  seem  to 
mean  the  opening  of  the  doors  of  sense  and  bodily  life, 
which  form  the  kingdom  of  the  devil,  and  which  Plato 
had  described  as  the  prison  of  the  soul,  or  the  unsealing 
of  the  tombs  that  hold  the  dead  as  prisoners?  Intro- 
duced into  the  mental  world  of  the  doctrine  of  mysteries, 
the  words  of  the  prophet  would  naturally  lose  their 
original  and  real  meaning,  and  become  symbols  of  a 
mysterious  truth  hidden  in  them,  the  meaning  of  which 
would  be  clear  only  to  the  initiated.  If  Isaiah's  servant 
of  God  was  a  saviour,  a  lord  over  natural  forces  chosen 
by  God,  like  the  pagan  saviour-gods,  he  must,  like  them, 
have  above  all  a  dominion  over  the  dread  world  of  spirits 
and  demons,  by  which  the  men  of  the  time  saw  them- 
selves surrounded  and  threatened  everywhere,  in  whom 
they  recognised  the  causes  of  disease,  and  for  protection 
against  whom  they  took  refuge  in  the  magical  realm  of 
the  mysteries.1  It  would,  therefore,  be  childish  to  take 
the  miracles  of  Jesus  at  their  face  value,  and  seek  to 
extract  from  the  gospel  narratives  which  describe  them 
an  "historical  nucleus."  Compare  a  story  like  that  of 
the  Gadarene  swine  (Mark  v,  1)  in  the  symbolical 
explanation  which  Lublinski  (p.  131)  gives  of  it  with 
the  historical  conception  of  it  in  Weiss.  Only  complete 
unintelligence  could  attempt  to  deduce  from  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  locality,  the  presence  of  the  swine,  etc., 
the  historical  place  and  truth  of  the  story ;  whereas  there 
is  obviously  question  of  the  nether  world,  of  a  symbolical 
representation  of  the  power  of  the  Saviour  over  the  demons, 

1  Compare  Zechariah  xiii,  2  :    "In    that   day I   will   cause the 

unclean  spirit  to  pass  out  of  the  land." 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  179 

and  the  swine  are  introduced  only  as  "  typhonic  "  beasts, 
to  suggest  the  scenery  of  the  nether  world.1  A  good 
deal  of  amusement  has  been  expressed  over  the  childish 
miracles  which  the  gospels  attribute  to  the  son  of  God. 
We  have,  however,  only  to  recognise  that  they  are  built 
on  the  prophet's  intimations  and  inspired  by  them,  and 
are  merely  symbols  of  the  spread  of  faith  in  Jesus,  as 
Smith  has  shown  at  length  in  his  Ecce  Deus ;  and  we 
shall  see  that  even  in  regard  to  the  miracles  the  evan- 
gelical way  of  putting  things  can  be  justified.  In  this 
way  the  much-discussed  question  of  the  miracles  of  the 
gospels  may  be  settled. 

SUPPLEMENT. 

As  we  have  seen,  Isaiah  and  Wisdom  are  the  germ- 
cell  of  the  figure  of  Jesus  in  the  gospels  and  the  Christian 
theory  of  redemption.  But  a  third  element  has  been  at 
work — the  figure  of  Job. 

The  canonical  book  of  Job  depicts  for  us  a  just  man 
who,  just  like  the  prophet's  servant  of  God,  is  tried  by  a 
conflict  with  Satan,  by  intolerable  suffering  and  humilia- 
tion, and  is  afterwards  raised  again  to  his  former  con- 
dition. There  is  much  in  the  book  that  directly  reminds 
us  of  Isaiah  liii  and  Psalm  xxii ;  for  instance,  the  circum- 
stance that  Job  and  the  servant  of  God  are  both  afflicted 
with  leprosy  (Isaiah  lii,  14;  liii,  4).  Or  read  the  follow- 
ing lament  of  Job  : — 

They  have  gaped  upon  me  with  their  mouth  ;  they  have 
smitten  me  upon  the  cheek  reproachfully ;  they  have 
gathered  themselves  together  against  me. 

1  That  the  whole  story  is  only  meant  to  be  symbolical  is  recognised  by 
some  theologians,  such  as  von  Baur and  Volkmar.  But  to  what  absurdities 
their  historical  point  of  view  will  lead  theologians  we  have  a  charming 
illustration  in  Otto  Schmiedel  (p.  114).  In  his  opinion,  the  possessed  man 
is  no  other  than  Paul,  and  the  whole  thing  is  a  piece  of  malicious  Judaeo- 
Christian  ridicule  of  the  apostle.  Yet  these  are  the  men  who  reproach  us 
with  "fantastic"  explanations,  and  ask  us  to  respect  the  "method"  of 
theologians. 


180  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

God  hath  delivered  me  to  the  ungodly,  and  turned  me 
over  into  the  hands  of  the  wicked 

His  archers  compass  me  round  about ;  he  cleaveth  my 
reins  asunder,  and  doth  not  spare ;  he  poureth  out  my 
gall  upon  the  ground 

My  face  is  foul  with  weeping,  and  on  my  eyelids  is  the 
shadow  of  death. 

Not  for  any  injustice  in  mine  hands :  also  my  prayer  is 
pure 

Let  my  cry  have  no  place. 

Also  now,  behold,  my  witness  is  in  heaven,  and  my 
record  is  on  high. 

My  friends  scorn  me,  but  mine  eye  poureth  out  tears 
unto  God 

My  breath  is  corrupt,  my  days  are  extinct,  the  graves 
are  ready  for  me. 

Are  there  not  mockers  with  me?  and  doth  not  mine 
eye  continue  in  their  provocation?  [My  eye  must  rest 
on  their  brawls.  Compare  the  soldiers  casting  dice  for 
the  garments  of  Jesus.] 

He  hath  made  me  also  a  byword  of  the  people,  and 
aforetime  I  was  as  a  tabret.  [I  must  let  my  face  be  spat 
upon.] 

Mine  eye  also  is  dim  by  reason  of  sorrow,  and  all  my 
members  are  as  a  shadow. 

Upright  men  shall  be  astonished  at  this,  and  the 
innocent  shall  stir  up  himself  against  the  hypocrite. 

The  righteous  also  shall  hold  on  his  way,  and  he  that 
hath  clean  hands  shall  be  stronger  and  stronger.1 
Job  cries  again  (ch.  xxix)  : — 

Oh  that  I  were  as  in  months  past,  as  in  the  days  when 
God  preserved  me ; 

When  his  candle  shined  upon  my  head,  and  when  by 
his  light  I  walked  through  darkness. 

As  I  was  in  the  days  of  my  youth 

When  the  Almighty  was  yet  with  me,  when  my 
children  were  about  me 

When  I  went  out  to  the  gate  through  the  city,  when  I 
prepared  my  seat  in  the  street. 

and  the  aged  arose,  and  stood  up. 

The  princes  refrained  talking,  and  laid  their  hand  on 
their  mouth.  [Compare  Isaiah  Hi,  15.] 

The  nobles  held  their  peace,  and  their  tongue  cleaved 
to  the  roof  of  their  mouth. 

1  Job  xvi,  10-xvii,  9.     Also  see  xxxix,  1,  9-11,  and  20. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  181 

When  the  ear  heard  me,  then  it  blessed  me  ;  and  when 
the  eye  saw  me,  it  gave  witness  to  me. 

Because  I  delivered  the  poor  that  cried,  and  the  father- 
less, and  him  that  had  none  to  help  him. 

The  blessing  of  him  that  was  ready  to  perish  came 
upon  me;  and  I  caused  the  widow's  heart  to  sing  for 
joy 

I  was  eyes  to  the  blind,  and  feet  was  I  to  the  lame. 

I  was  a  father  to  the  poor,  and  the  cause  which  I 
knew  not  I  searched  out. 

And  I  brake  the  jaws  of  the  wicked,  and  plucked  the 
spoil  out  of  his  teeth 

Unto  me  men  gave  ear,  and  waited,  and  kept  silence  at 
my  counsel. 

After  my  words  they  spake  not  again  ;  and  my  speech 
dropped  upon  them. 

I  laughed  on  them  when  they  despaired ;  they  believed 
it  not,  and  the  light  of  my  countenance  they  cast  not  down. 

I  chose  out  their  way,  and  sat  chief,  and  dwelt  as  a 
king  in  the  army,  as  one  that  comforteth  the  mourners. 

These  words  remind  us  of  the  prophet's  servant  of  God. 
But  at  the  same  time  we  see  Jesus  before  us,  as,  sur- 
rounded by  his  disciples,  he  speaks  to  the  people  in  the 
market-place  and  the  streets,  disputes  with  the  Pharisees 
and  Scribes,  and  silences  them,  strides  through  life  helping, 
working  miracles,  consoling,  healing,  and  encouraging,  and 
is  blessed  by  the  crowd  and  by  the  lost  and  the  saved. 

Still  greater,  however,  than  with  the  canonical  book  of 
Job  is  the  concordance  of  the  gospel  figure  of  Jesus  with 
the  popular  Jewish  additions  to  it.  One  of  these  we  have 
in  the  so-called  Job's  Testament,  which  was  first  published 
in  1883,  and  again  in  1897  by  Montague  Rhodes  James 
and  K.  Kohler,  and  very  closely  studied  by  Spitta  in  its 
relation  to  the  New  Testament.1  James  held  at  first  that 
Job's  Testament  was  purely  Jewish  and  pre-Christian,  but 
afterwards  attributed  it  to  a  Jewish  convert  to  Chris- 
tianity, as  he  could  find  no  other  explanation  of  its 
astonishing  agreements  with  the  New  Testament,  not 
only  as  regards  its  general  contents,  but  at  times  even  in 

1  Zur  Geschichte  und  Liter atur  des  Urchristentums,  1907,  iii,  2. 


182  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

words.1  Kohler  regards  it  as  pre-Christian,  an  Essenian 
Midrasch  on  the  book  of  Job ;  this  is,  however,  denied  by 
Spitta.  Bousset,  a  careful  man,  finds  a  "  slight  Christian 
modification  "  of  a  Jewish  work,  while  Spitta  believes  that 
the  remarkable  work  has  a  purely  Jewish  character :  *  v  ne 
of  the  Jewish  pre-conditions  of  Christianity,  a  full  know- 
ledge of  which  is  of  great  importance  for  an  appreciation 
of  Christianity  itself,  and  especially  of  the  figure  of  Jesus." 
"  In  this  case,  it  seems  to  me,"  he  says,  "  the  view  would 
be  more  plausible  that  the  figure  of  Jesus  is  of  pre- 
Christian  origin  than  in  connection  with  the  Gilgamesch- 
epic  or  W.  B.  Smith's  pre-Christian  Jesus."  He  empha- 
sises the  following  points:  "Job  and  Jesus  are  both  of 
royal  race ;  both  are  healers  of  the  poor  and  distressed  ; 
both  struggle  against  the  power  of  Satan,  and  are  fruit- 
lessly tempted  by  him  to  fall  away  from  God  ;  both  incur 
suffering  and  contempt,  even  death,  by  the  machinations 
of  the  devil ;  both  are  saved  from  necrotes  [the  state  of 
death],  attain  honour  on  earth,  and  are  raised  to  the 
throne  at  the  right  hand  of  God"  (p.  198).  Spitta  does 
not  fail  to  point  out  the  differences  between  Job  and 
Jesus  ;  but  he  considers  the  resemblance  to  be  so  great 
that,  in  his  opinion,  it  is  enough  "  to  explain  how  it  could 
happen  that  the  figure  of  Jesus  was  involuntarily  endowed 
by  Jewish  writers  with  features  which  originally  belong 
to  the  Job-legend  "  (p.  200).  That  this  figure  could  have 
arisen  only  in  connection  with  the  figure  of  Job  is  a 
possibility  which,  of  course,  lies  beyond  the  horizon  of  the 
theologian.  Yet  so  many  details  of  the  gospel  portrait  of 
Jesus  have  been  shown  to  be  due  to  foreign  influence  that 
we  can  hardly  say  what  is  really  supposed  to  be  historical 
in  it.  For  the  rest,  the  Christians  themselves  were  well 
aware  of  the  resemblance  of  their  Jesus  to  Job.  It  is 
proved  by  James  v,  10,  where  we  read :  "  Take,  my 
brethren,  the  prophets  who  have  spoken  in  the  name  of 

1  Compare,  especially,  the  remarkable  resemblance  to  the  story  of  the 
Magi  in  Matthew  ii.     See  Spitta,  p.  192,  and  James,  pp.  169,  199,  and  204. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  183 

the  Lord,  for  an  example  of  suffering  affliction,  and  of 
patience.  Behold,  we  count  them  happy  which  endure. 
Ye  have  heard  of  the  patience  of  Job,  and  have  seen  the 
end  of  the  Lord  ;  that  the  Lord  is  very  pitiful,  and  of 
tender  mercy."  Here  Jesus  is  put  on  a  level  with  Job, 
assuming  that  by  "the  Lord"  we  are  to  understand 
Jesus,  and  not  Jahveh,  which  seems  more  likely,  in  view 
of  the  reference  to  the  prophets  who  have  spoken  "  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord." 

(c)  John  the  Baptist  and  the  Baptism  of  Jesus. — Weiss 
rightly  speaks  of  the  gospel  of  Mark  as  "  a  story  of  the 
Passion  prolonged  backwards."  This  rich  fullness  of  the 
earthly  life  of  Jesus  is  assuredly  something  more  than  a 
development  of  Pauline  principle  ;  he  humbled  himself, 
and  was  obedient  even  to  the  death  on  the  cross.  From 
the  Pauline  gospel  alone  the  evangelist  could  not  possibly 
have  evolved  his  narrative  (p.  132).  But  no  one  has  said 
that  he  could.  What  I  do  say  is  that  the  prophet  Isaiah 
has  supplied  the  chief  features  for  the  story  of  Jesus,  and 
the  general  framework.  There,  and  there  only,  do  we 
find  the  real  "  main  pillars  of  a  truly  scientific  life  of 
Jesus."  Not  only  the  sufferings,  death,  resurrection,  and 
exaltation,  but  the  description  of  his  character  and  activity 
and  miraculous  power,  come  from  the  prophet's  words. 
Even  the  first  appearance  of  Jesus,  in  connection  with  the 
penitential  preaching  of  John,  links  with  the  text  of 
Isaiah.  The  words  with  which  the  earliest  gospel  opens 
are  also  the  beginning  of  the  second  part  of  the  book  of 
the  prophet,  the  author  of  which  is  known  as  the  Deutero- 
Isaiah,  and  distinguished  from  the  older  prophet ;  he  is 
believed  to  have  written  his  work  at  Babylon  in  the  last 
days  of  the  captivity. 

1  Is  James  a  Christian  Epistle  in  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the  word  ? 
The  Epistle,  it  is  true,  contains  sayings  of  Jesus,  but  they  are  not  described 
as  such,  and  there  is  no  clear  indication  that  the  Epistle  reflects  anything 
but  purely  Jewish  ideas.  Perhaps  it  belongs  to  "pre-Christian  Chris- 
tianity," when  the  Jewish  Jahveh,  "the  Lord,"  was  worshipped  under  the 
name  of  Jesus.  See  later. 


184  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

The  voice  of  him  that  crieth  in  the  wilderness  :  Prepare 
ye  the  way  of  the  Lord,  make  straight  in  the  desert  a 
highway  for  our  God. 

Every  valley  shall  be  exalted,  and  every  mountain  and 
hill  shall  be  laid  low ;  and  the  crooked  shall  be  made 
straight,  and  the  rough  places  plain  ; 

And  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shall  be  revealed,  and  all 
flesh  shall  see  it  together :  for  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath 
spoken  it  (xl,  3-5). 

The  gospel  refers  the  words  to  the  Baptist,  the  "  voice 
of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,"  to  whom  "  the  word  of 
the  Lord  came"  (Luke  iii,  2).  But  we  know  that,  as 
Mark  himself  says,  he  has  been  influenced  by  the  prophet 
Malachi,  who  says  in  his  third  chapter :  "  Behold,  I  will 
send  my  messenger,  and  he  shall  prepare  the  way  before 
me";  that  the  words  "  in  the  wilderness"  have  been 
inserted  by  a  copyist  in  the  wrong  place ;  in  reality,  they 
do  not  denote  the  place  whence  the  cry  came,  but  mean 
that  the  way  is  to  be  prepared  in  the  wilderness.  We  are 
thus  led  to  suspect  that  the  figure  of  the  "  precursor  "  also 
may  have  grown  out  of  the  above  passage  in  the  prophet, 
and  that  the  idea  of  a  double  mission  of  Jahveh  to  his 
people  may  have  arisen  from  the  passage  in  which  Isaiah, 
consoling  his  fellows,  says  that  Jerusalem  has  received 
"  double  from  the  hand  of  Jahveh  "  for  all  its  sins  (xl,  2). 
The  ideas  of  the  Baptist's  message  also  agree  with  the 
admonishing  words  which  the  prophet  earnestly  addresses 
to  Jerusalem.  "  There  cometh  one  mightier  than  I  after 
me,"  we  read  in  Mark  (i,  7),  "  the  latchet  of  whose  shoes 
I  am  not  worthy  to  stoop  down  and  unloose."  In  Isaiah 
it  is  said  :  "  The  Lord  God  will  come  with  strong  hand." 
The  prophet  then  describes  the  power  and  greatness  of 
Jahveh,  before  whom  all  the  peoples  and  powers  of  the 
earth  are  nought,  whose  spirit  is  immeasurable,  his  power 
incomparable,  and  who  says :  "  I  have  raised  up  one  from 
the  north,  and  he  shall  come ;  from  the  rising  of  the  sun 
shall  he  call  upon  my  name ;  and  he  shall  come  upon 
princes  as  upon  mortar,  and  as  the  potter  treadeth  clay  " 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  185 

(xli,  25).  "  Whose  fan  is  in  his  hand  " — so  Matthew  and 
Luke  complete  the  words  of  the  earliest  gospel — "  and  he 
will  thoroughly  purge  his  floor,  and  gather  his  wheat  into 
the  garner  ;  but  he  will  burn  up  the  chaff  with  unquench- 
able fire"  (Matthew  iii,  12;  Luke  iii,  17).  In  Isaiah 
Jahveh  says  to  Israel :  "  Behold,  I  will  make  thee  a  new 
sharp  threshing  instrument,  having  teeth ;  thou  shalt 
thresh  the  mountains  and  beat  them  small,  and  shalt 
make  the  hills  as  chaff.  Thou  shalt  fan  them,  and  the 
wind  shall  carry  them  away,  and  the  whirlwind  shall 
scatter  them  "  (xli,  15).  And  in  xlvii,  14,  it  is  said  of  the 
Gentiles  :  "  Behold,  they  shall  be  as  stubble  ;  the  fire  shall 
burn  them ;  they  shall  not  deliver  themselves  from  the 
power  of  the  flame." 

It  is  a  language  of  repentance  and  warning  that  the 
evangelist  puts  in  the  mouth  of  the  Baptist :  "  Repent  ye, 
for  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand."  The  last  judgment 
approaches.  The  expected  Messiah  is  near.  So  in  the 
prophet  also  Jahveh  appears  as  a  kind  of  judge  who 
summons  the  nations  before  his  chair,  to  prove  to  them 
the  nothingness  of  their  deities  in  comparison  with  the 
hero  whom  he  has  raised  for  the  redemption  of  his 
people.  "  Bring  forth  the  people  that  is  blind,  though  it 
hath  eyes,  and  they  that  are  deaf,  although  they  have 
ears.  All  ye  peoples,  gather  yourselves  together,  and  let 
the  nations  congregate."  "  Behold,  ye  are  of  nothing,"  he 
says,  reviling  the  gods  of  the  nations,  "  and  your  work 
of  nought ;  an  abomination  is  he  that  chooseth  you  " 
(xli,  24).  Who  is  not  reminded  of  the  reproaches  which 
John  addresses  to  the  Pharisees,  scourging  their  stubborn- 
ness and  darkness :  "  Generation  of  vipers,  who  hath 
warned  you  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come  "? 

The  publicans  come  to  John  and  ask :  "  What  shall  we 


1  See  also  Isaiah  v  and  Psalm  i,  22,  where  the  just,  who  rejoices  in  the 
law  of  Jahveh,  is  compared  with  the  tree  by  the  stream,  "that  bringeth 
forth  its  fruit  in  due  season,"  while  the  godless  are  described  as  "chaff," 
which  "  the  wind  sweeps  away." 


186  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

do  ?"  And  he  replies  :  "  Exact  no  more  than  that  which 
is  appointed  you."  The  soldiers  put  the  same  question 
and  receive  the  answer  :  "  Do  violence  to  no  man,  neither 
accuse  any  falsely;  and  be  content  with  your  wages" 
(Luke  iii,  12-14).  We  read  in  Isaiah  (xxxiii,  15)  :  "  He 
that  walketh  righteously  and  speaketh  uprightly,  he  that 
despiseth  the  gain  of  oppressions,  that  shaketh  his  hands 
from  holding  of  bribes,  that  stoppeth  his  ears  from 
hearing  of  blood,  and  shutteth  his  eyes  from  seeing  evil ; 
he  shall  dwell  on  high ;  his  place  of  defence  shall  be  the 
munitions  of  rocks." 

"  Bring  forth  fruits  worthy  of  repentance,"  the  Baptist 
cries  to  the  Pharisees,  "  and  begin  not  to  say  within 
yourselves :  We  have  Abraham  to  our  father ;  for  I  say 
unto  you  that  God  is  able  of  these  stones  to  raise  up 
children  unto  Abraham.  And  now  also  the  axe  is  laid 
unto  the  root  of  the  trees  ;  every  tree  therefore  which 
bringeth  not  forth  good  fruit  is  hewn  down  and  cast  into 
the  fire"  (Luke  iii,  8  and  9).  Can  it  be  a  mere  coinci- 
dence that  there  is  also  question  of  "  the  seed  of 
Abraham "  in  the  forty-first  chapter  of  Isaiah,  and 
Israel  is  consoled  precisely  as  the  Pharisees  are  in  the 
gospels,  when  they  boast  of  their  "righteousness"  in 
having  Abraham  for  father  ?  And  what  do  we  read  at 
the  beginning  of  the  fifty-first  chapter  of  the  prophet? 
"  Hearken  to  me,  ye  that  follow  after  righteousness,  ye 
that  seek  the  Lord :  Look  unto  the  rock  whence  ye  are 

hewn Look  unto  Abraham,  your  father."  Isaiah 

also  makes  "  the  day  of  the  Lord  "  humble  all  that  are 
proud  and  lofty  (ii,  12),  and  Ezekiel  makes  the  proud 
oaks  of  Lebanon  fall  at  Jahveh's  command  because  of 
their  haughtiness  and  godless  nature  (xxxi,  12). 

Robert  Eisler  has,  in  an  essay  on  the  baptism  of  John,1 
drawn  attention  to  Micah  vii,  14,  where  the  prophet 
makes  Zion  say  to  Jahveh  : — 

1  In  the  Silddeuische  Monatshefte,  1909,  Heft  12. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  187 

Feed  thy  people  with  thy  rod,  the  flock  of  thine 
heritage,  which  dwell  solitarily  in  the  wood  in  the  midst  of 
Carmel  the  orchard 

According  to  the  days  of  thy  coming  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt  will  I  shew  unto  him  marvellous  things. 

The  nations  shall  see  and  be  confounded  at  all  their 
might their  ears  shall  be  deaf. 

They  shall  lick  the  dust  like  a  serpent,  they  shall  move 
out  of  their  holes  like  worms  of  the  earth ;  they  shall  be 
afraid  of  the  Lord  our  God,  and  fear  because  of  thee. 

Who  is  a  God  like  unto  thee,  that  pardoneth  iniquity, 
and  passeth  by  the  transgression  of  the  remnant  of  his 
heritage? 

He  will  turn  again,  he  will  have  compassion  upon  us ; 
he  will  subdue  our  iniquities ;  and  thou  wilt  cast  all  their 
sins  into  the  depth  of  the  sea. 

Thou  wilt  perform  the  truth  to  Jacob,  and  the  mercy 
to  Abraham,  which  thou  hast  sworn  unto  our  fathers 
from  the  days  of  old. 

Here  the  situation  is  just  the  same,  not  only  as  in  the 
fortieth  and  forty-first  chapters  of  Isaiah,  but  as  in  the 
gospel  account  of  the  appearance  of  John.  Nearly  every 
detail  of  the  words  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  Baptist  is 
found  in  the  words  of  the  prophet :  Jahveh  conceived  as 
a  pastoral  inhabitant  of  the  wilderness  in  Israel,  about 
whom  the  people  in  the  wilderness  gather  in  spite  of  the 
orchards  about  them,  the  reference  to  the  coming  anger 
of  Jahveh,  the  stubbornness  of  the  "  nations,"  the  threat 
that  they  will  be  humbled  before  Jahveh  in  spite  of  all 
their  power,  the  comparison  of  the  stubborn  with  serpents 
("  generation  of  vipers  "),  the  remark  that  the  stubborn 
themselves  do  not  share  in  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and 
inherit  grace  because  they  are  descended  from  Abraham, 
to  whom  Jahveh  promised  these  things ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  penitent  shall  see  such  wonders  as  were 
done  at  the  flight  from  Egypt,  and  especially  the  baptism, 
by  which  sins  are  cast  into  the  sea  and  washed  away  by 
its  waves.  It  was  not  unusual  to  put  an  expiatory  mean- 
ing on  the  passage  of  the  Israelites  through  the  Ked  Sea, 
and  to  regard  it  as  a  kind  of  baptism  and  forgiveness  of 


188  TEE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

sins  of  the  whole  people,  as  Paul  says :  "  All  our  fathers 

passed  through  the  sea,  and  were  all  baptised  unto 

Moses  in  the  cloud  and  in  the  sea  "  (1  Cor.  x,  1). 

In  Isaiah  also  the  "  Holy  One  of  Israel,"  Jahveh, 
promises  his  people  that  they  shall  rejoice  over  him. 
"When  the  poor  and  needy  seek  water,  and  there  is 
none,  and  the  tongue  faileth  for  thirst,  I  the  Lord  will 

hear  them I  will  open  rivers  in  high  places,  and 

fountains  in  the  midst  of  the  valleys ;  I  will  make  the 
wilderness  a  pool  of  water,  and  the  dry  land  springs  of 

water  "  (xli,  17) .  "  Fear  not,  0  Jacob,  my  servant for 

I  will  pour  water  upon  him  that  is  thirsty,  and  floods 
upon  the  dry  ground :  I  will  pour  my  spirit  upon  thy 
seed,  and  my  blessing  upon  thine  offspring ;  and  they 
shall  spring  up  as  among  the  grass,  as  willows  by  the 
water  courses"  (xliv,  2).  The  figure  of  the  springs  in 
the  desert  waste  recalls  the  "  shoots  on  dry  land,"  and 
we  have  the  connection  between  the  baptism  of  John 
and  the  baptism  of  the  servant  of  God :  "  Behold,  I  will 
do  a  new  thing ;  now  it  shall  spring  forth ;  shall  ye  not 
know  it  ?  I  will  even  make  a  way  in  the  wilderness,  and 

rivers  in  the  desert to  give  drink  to  my  people,  my 

chosen"  (xliii,  19  and  20). 

"  I  baptise  you  with  water,"  Matthew  and  Luke  make 
John  say,  "  but  one  mightier  than  I  cometh  who  shall 
baptise  you  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire."  In 
Isaiah  it  is  written :  "  When  thou  passest  through  the 
waters,  I  will  be  with  thee ;  and  through  the  rivers,  they 
shall  not  overflow  thee ;  when  thou  walkest  through  the 
fire,  thou  shalt  not  be  burned;  neither  shall  the  flame 
kindle  upon  thee"  (xliii,  2);  and  the  following  verses 
show  clearly  that  he  also  has  in  mind  the  baptism  in  the 
Red  Sea,  the  baptism  by  water  as  distinct  from  the 
baptism  by  fire,  since  he  says  :  "I  gave  Egypt  for  thy 

ransom therefore  will  I  give  men  for  thee  and  people 

for  thy  life." 

And  now  we  read  in  the  famous  eleventh  chapter  of 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  189 

the  prophet,  on  "  the  rod  of  the  stem  of  Jesse  ":  "  The 
spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  rest  upon  him,  the  spirit  of 
wisdom  and  understanding,  the  spirit  of  counsel  and 
might,  the  spirit  of  knowledge  and  of  the  fear  of  the 
Lord"  (xi,  2).  These  are  the  words  which  have  given 
rise  to  the  story  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus  and  the  descent 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  upon  him,  and  we  now  understand 
why  the  preacher  of  repentance,  John,  threatens  with  a 
coming  judgment.  The  "rod"  of  the  passage  is  repre- 
sented mainly  in  the  character  of  an  upright  judge,  of 
whom  it  is  said  that  he  will  "judge  the  poor  with 
righteousness,  and  reprove  with  equity  for  the  meek  of 
the  earth ;  and  he  shall  smite  the  earth  with  the  rod  of 
his  mouth,  and  with  the  breath  of  his  lips  shall  he  slay 
the  wicked.  And  righteousness  shall  be  the  girdle  of  his 
loins,  and  faithfulness  the  girdle  of  his  reins "  (xi, 
4  and  5). 

Thus  the  whole  story  of  the  appearance  of  John  and 
the  baptism  of  Jesus  is  built  on  the  prophet  Isaiah.  This 
removes  the  difficulties  which  a  purely  historical  concep- 
tion of  the  story  encounters,  especially  in  the  contradictory 
statement  that  a  Jesus  could  submit  to  the  baptism  of 
John ;  all  the  countless  attempts  to  explain  this  are 
merely  play  on  words.  What  has  not  been  written  on 
the  character  of  John  and  his  relation  to  Jesus !  It 
would  be  just  as  reasonable  to  take  as  the  subject  of  a 
"  scientific "  investigation  the  question  why  Achilles 
remained  inactive  ten  years  before  Troy,  instead  of  going 
home  and  devoting  himself  to  other  matters.  One  must 
regard  with  some  pain  a  science  that,  on  account  of  its 
connection  with  ecclesiastical  life,  has  to  propose  such 
questions  and  deal  with  them  in  academically  approved 
and  learned  works,  when  it  is  clear  from  the  above 
passages  in  Isaiah  that  the  whole  story  of  the  baptism 
belongs  to  the  province  of  fiction. 

As  yet  we  have  not  touched  upon  the  astral  features 
that  seem  to  occur  in  the  story  of  the  baptism. 


190  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

Dupuis  long  ago  identified  the  John  of  the  gospels  with 
the  Babylonian  Cannes,  Joannes,  or  Hanni,  the  curiously 
shaped  creature,  half  fish  and  half  man,  who,  according 
to  Berosus,  was  the  first  lawgiver  and  inventor  of  letters 
and  founder  of  civilisation,  and  who  rose  every  morning 
from  the  waves  of  the  Bed  Sea  in  order  to  instruct  men 
as  to  his  real  spiritual  nature.  He  believed  that  he  could 
recognise  him  in  the  southern  constellation  of  the  Fishes, 
as  this  seemed  to  the  inhabitants  of  Babylon  to  rise  out  of 
the  Bed  Sea,  and  its  rising  and  setting  indicated  the  two 
yearly  solstices.1  Possibly,  however,  he  was  originally 
Aquarius,  as  this  constellation  is  depicted  as  a  fish-man 
in  the  old  oriental  sphere,  and  the  constellation  of  the 
Fishes  was  afterwards  detached  from  it.2  In  any  case,  it 
was  connected  with  the  division  of  the  year  by  solstices, 
and  was  in  this  sense  a  "  teacher  of  astronomy."  We 
have  a  reminiscence  of  this  primitive  astral  significance 
of  John  in  the  fact  that  we  still  celebrate  his  festival  on 
the  day  of  the  solstice,  when  the  constellation  of  the 
southern  Fishes  rises  as  the  sun  sets,  and  disappears 
as  the  sun  rises.  Also  the  newly  baptised  Christians 
used  to  be  called  fishes  (pisciculi  in  Tertullian),  and  the 
baptismal  font  is  still  called  the  piscina,  .or  fish-pond.  Thus 
the  fish-man  has  been  turned  in  Christianity  into  a  sort 
of  fisher  of  men.  To  this  there  is  an  allusion  in  the 
Ambrosian  choral  (hamum  pro/undo  miserat  piscatus  est 
verbumDei),  representing  John  as  drawing  the  converted 
out  of  the  water  with  an  arm  of  the  cross ;  which  recalls 
Cannes,  who  saved  the  first  man  from  the  flood,  and  is 
supposed  to  have  endowed  him  with  his  real  life  as  a  man 
and  spirit. 

That  the  evangelist  himself  perceived  this  relation  of 
John  to  the  fishes  is  proved  by  the  parable  attributed  to 
the  Saviour,  comparing  the  actual  generation  to  children 
who  sit  in  the  market-place  and  call  to  each  other : 

1  Dupuis,  L'origine  de  tons  les  cultes,  1795,  III,  pp.  619  and  G83. 

2  Creuzer,  Symbolik  und  Mythologie  der  alien  Vvlker,  1820,  II,  p.  78. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  191 

" We  have  piped  unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  danced" 
(Matthew  xi,  16  ;  Luke  vii,  32).  For  these  words  remind 
one  very  much  of  Herodotus,  according  to  whom,  when 
Cyrus  heard  the  willingness  of  the  lonians,  who  had 
hitherto  refused  to  obey,  to  submit  after  his  victory  over 
Croesus,  he  said  in  a  parable :  "  A  fisherman  saw  fishes  in 
the  sea,  and  played  his  flute  in  order  to  bring  them  out 
upon  the  land.  And  when  he  saw  that  he  had  failed,  he 
took  a  net,  and  caught  a  great  number  of  fishes  in  it,  and 
drew  them  out.  And  when  he  saw  them  floundering,  he 
said  to  the  fishes :  '  You  need  not  dance  now,  since  you 
would  not  dance  when  I  piped.' ' 

As  the  one  who  indicates  the  solstices  and  divides  the 
year,  Cannes  becomes  identical  with  the  sun  itself,  as  a 
rising  and  setting  star.  In  this  way  he  entered  the  myth- 
group  of  Joshua,  Jason,  and  Jesus,  and,  indeed,  corre- 
sponds to  the  Old  Testament  Caleb,  as  representative 
of  the  summer  solstice,  when  the  dog-star  (Sirius)  sets  in 
the  month  of  the  Lion,  or  of  the  autumnal  equinox,  which 
is  the  division  of  the  year  equivalent  to  the  former,  when 
the  sun  descends  below  the  celestial  equator  into  the  land 
of  winter.  Joshua  (Jesus),  on  the  other  hand,  repre- 
sented the  winter  solstice,  at  which  the  days  begin  to 
grow  longer,  or  the  vernal  equinox,  when  the  sun  again 
advances  beyond  the  equator,  and  enters  victoriously  the 
"Promised  Land"  beyond  the  Jordan  (or  the  Milky 
Way)  of  the  heavenly  Eridanus,  the  watery  region  of  the 
heavens,  in  which  the  zodiacal  signs  of  Aquarius  and 
Pisces  predominate.  The  evangelist  expresses  this  by 
making  John  be  born  six  months  before  Jesus  (Luke  i,  36), 
and  disappear  from  the  scene  and  be  put  to  death  at  the 
time  when  Jesus  enters  it  (Mark  i,  14).  Hence  the 
words  of  John  :  "  He  must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease  " 
(iii,  30).  Again,  as  the  setting  sun  the  Baptist  resembles 
the  Greek  Hermes  Psychopompos,  who,  at  the  time  of 
the  autumnal  equinox,  leads  the  constellations  or  souls 
into  the  nether  world,  the  dark  and  sterile  half  of  the 


192  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

year — symbolically  represented  by  the  "  wilderness,"  in 
which  the  people  come  to  John,  who  is  there.  On  the 
other  hand,  Jesus,  as  the  rising  sun,  resembles  Hermes 
Necropompos,  who  leads  back  the  souls  at  the  time  of 
the  vernal  equinox  to  the  heavenly  home  of  light,  the 
"  kingdom  of  heaven,"  their  true  home.  Hence  it  is  said 
of  the  Baptist  in  the  gospel :  "  John  came  neither  eating 
nor  drinking ";  but  of  Jesus  :  "  The  son  of  man  came 
eating  and  drinking"  (Matthew  xi,  17).  This  is  quite 
intelligible  when  we  see  the  relation  of  the  one  to  the 
winter,  and  of  the  other  to  the  summer. 

The  oriental  imagination,  however,  is  not  satisfied  with 
this  general  idea.  It  affects  to  find  the  Baptist  in  the 
constellation  of  Orion,  near  which,  at  the  time  when  the 
point  of  spring  falls  in  the  constellation  of  Taurus,  the 
sun  is  found  at  the  time  of  the  vernal  equinox.  It  stands 
in  the  celestial  Eridanus,  in  the  Milky  Way,  at  Bethabara 
(John  i,  28),  the  "  place  of  setting  " — that  is  to  say,  near  the 
spot  where  the  sun  crosses  the  Milky  Way  in  the  zodiac. 
With  one  foot  it  emerges  from  Eridanus,  which  connects 
with  the  Milky  Way,  and  seems  to  draw  water  from  it  with 
the  right  hand,  at  the  same  time  raising  the  left  as  if  bless- 
ing— really  a  very  vivid  astral  figure  of  the  Baptist ;  we 
have  also  the  three  stars  of  Orion's  belt  in  the  (leathern) 
girdle  which  the  gospels  give  to  the  Baptist,  and  the  people 
are  seen  in  the  constellations  about  Orion,  and,  according 
to  Babylonian  ideas,  a  meeting  of  the  gods  takes  place  at 
the  vernal  equinox  when  the  sun  has  run  its  course 
through  the  zodiac.1 

It  is  useless  to  oppose  to  this  conception  of  John  the 
familiar  passage  of  Josephus  (xviii,  5,  2)  as  proving  the 
historicity  of  the  Baptist.  The  genuineness  of  the  passage 
is  just  as  doubtful  as  that  of  the  two  references  in  Josephus 


1  I  borrow  this  indication  of  the  connection  of  the  Baptist  with  the  con- 
stellation Orion  from  Fuhrmann's  work,  Der  Astralmythos  von  Christus. 
Also  see,  as  to  the  astral  features  of  the  Baptist,  Niemojewski  (work  cited, 
under  "Joannes "  in  the  index). 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  193 

to  Jesus.  Not  only  does  the  way  in  which  it  interrupts 
the  narrative  plainly  show  it  to  be  an  interpolation,  but 
the  chronology  of  the  Jewish  historian  in  regard  to  John 
is  in  irreconcilable  contradiction  to  that  of  the  gospels. 
According  to  the  gospels,  the  appearance  or  the  death  of 
John  must  have  taken  place  in  the  year  28  or  29  ;  whereas 
the  war  of  Herod  with  the  Nabataean  Aretas,  the  unfor- 
tunate result  of  which  was,  according  to  Josephus,  to  be 
regarded  as  a  punishment  for  the  execution  of  John,  falls 
in  the  years  35  and  36  of  the  present  era.  Moreover, 
the  complaints  against  Herod  Antipas  on  account  of  his 
ncestuous  marriage  with  his  brother's  wife,  which  are 
supposed  to  have  occasioned  the  death  of  John,  cannot 
have  been  made  before  then.1  In  fine,  John  might 
be  an  historical  personality  without  there  being  any 
historical  truth  in  what  the  gospels  say  of  him.  His 
connection  with  the  story  of  Jesus  is  certainly  due 
to  astral  considerations  and  the  passages  we  quoted  from 
Isaiah.  We  have,  therefore,  no  reason  to  regard  it  as 
historical. 

Space  will  not  permit  us  to  go  more  closely  at  this 
point  into  the  astral  features  of  the  gospel  narrative. 
Here  there  is  a  field  o^en  to  future  research  which  has  as 
yet  been  touched  only  by  a  few  isolated  students,  and 
from  which  historical  theology  may  expect  some  un- 
pleasant surprises.  The  examination  of  the  gospel  story 
from  the  astral-mythological  point  of  view  was  begun  by 
Dupuis,  Volney,  and  Nork  a  century  ago  ;  and  Niemojewski 
has  more  recently  done  very  promising  work  in  that  field. 
Others  will  follow  him,  and  furnish  us  with  an  entirely 
new  key  to  the  problems  of  the  New  Testament.2  It  will, 
however,  always  be  difficult  to  say  how  far  the  story  of 
Jesus  is  affected  by  astral  relations  and  how  far  by  the 


1  Compare  Graetz,  Gesch.  der  Juden,  1888,  III,  p.  278. 

2  See  also  Wilhelm  Erbt,  Das  Markusevangelium.    Eine  Untersuchung 
Uber  die  Form  der  Petruser  inner  imqen  und  die  Oeschichte  der  Urqemeinde, 
1911. 


194  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

Old  Testament,  which  of  the  two  influences  was  the 
earlier,  and  whether  the  relevant  passages  of  the  Old 
Testament  may  not  possibly  themselves  be  influenced  by 
astral  considerations. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  astral  mythology  has 
furnished  the  framework  or  skeleton  of  the  gospel  story, 
and  made  it  clear  that  many  episodes  which  seem  to  be 
disconnected  in  the  gospels  owe  their  position  to  their 
place  in  the  astral  system.  It  suffices  here  to  mention 
the  importance  of  astral  mythology  in  the  interpretation  of 
the  gospels,  and  to  show  in  the  case  of  the  Baptist  how  the 
two  methods  of  interpretation  work  together.  When  the 
actual  prejudice  against  astral  mythology  disappears,  when 
a  closer  knowledge  of  the  starry  heavens  than  we  now  have 
places  the  student  in  a  position  to  test  these  relations  in 
detail,  when  it  is  generally  recognised  that  astronomy  and 
a  knowledge  of  astrological  language  are  at  least  as 
necessary  for  a  correct  understanding  of  the  ancient  east 
as  philology  is  for  critical  theology,  the  time  will  have 
come  for  the  last  supports  of  the  present  purely  historical 
conception  of  the  gospels  to  break  down,  for  the  symbolical- 
mythical  method  to  triumph  completely  over  the  present 
historical  method,  and  for  the  "  twilight  of  the  gods  "  of 
critical  theology.  For  the  present  theologians  know  what 
they  are  doing  when  they  meet  all  such  research  with  a  dis- 
dainful smile,  and  declare  it  "  unscientific."  Their  position 
in  regard  to  it  is  much  the  same  as  the  position  of  the 
early  Church  in  regard  to  the  astrological  speculations  of 
the  Gnostics,  which  were  met  with  the  bitterest  hostility, 
because  they  betrayed  too  much  of  the  real  origins  of 
Christianity,  and  were  the  most  dangerous  obstacle  to  its 
representation  as  historical. 

(d)  The  Name  of  the  Messiah. — Meantime  what  we 
have  seen  will  suffice  to  convince  any  impartial  reader 
that,  as  we  said,  the  figure  of  the  saviour  or  redeemer  in 
the  gospels  is  really  due  to  the  prophet  Isaiah,  and  that 
the  character  of  the  suffering  servant  of  God,  as  described 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  195 

by  the  prophet,  was  in  the  mind  of  the  evangelists.1  His 
very  name,  Christus,  the  "anointed,"  can  be  traced  to 
Isaiah  (Ixi,  1),  where  the  prophet  says  that  the  spirit  of 
the  Lord  rests  on  him,  because  Jahveh  has  "  anointed  " 
him  (see  also  xlii,  1).  It  is,  however,  very  significant 
that  the  saviour  and  servant  of  God  everywhere  submits 
to  him,  as  if  he  were  speaking  the  other's  words,  and 
Jahveh,  the  prophet,  and  the  servant  of  God  combine  in 
one  personality;  just  as  in  the  gospel  of  Luke  Jesus  at 
once  applies  the  word  of  the  prophet  to  himself,  and  by 
its  means  unfolds  the  programme  of  his  future  work  in 
his  first  public  appearance  in  the  synagogue.  In  the 
Jewish  mind  the  "  anointed "  is  the  Messiah,  which  is 
merely  the  Hebrew  for  Christ.  It  is  a  fresh  proof  that 
the  idea  of  a  suffering  Messiah  was  bound  to  begin  early 
to  build  on  the  above  passages  in  Isaiah,  as  soon  as  the 
announcement  of  the  glad  tidings  was  conceived  as  an 
announcement  of  the  servant  of  God  or  of  the  Jahveh 
who  was  identified  with  him. 

Now,  in  Isaiah  vii,  14,  the  "  son  of  the  virgin  "  is 
named  Emmanuel,  and  this  is  translated  "  God  with  us." 
That  is  also  the  meaning  of  the  name  Jesus,  since  in 
Matthew  i,  21,  the  son  of  Mary  receives  this  name,  "  that 
it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the 
prophet,  saying,  Behold,  a  virgin  shall  be  with  child,  and 
shall  bring  forth  a  son,  and  they  shall  call  his  name 
Emmanuel."  In  the  Septuagint,  as  we  know,  Jesus  is 
the  Greek  form  of  the  Hebrew  Jeschua,  which  in  turn 
is  the  same  as  Jehoschua  or  Joshua.  Joshua,  however, 
means  something  like  "  Jahveh  is  salvation,"  "  Jah-Help," 
and  corresponds  to  the  German  name  "  Gotthilf."  We 
read  in  Matthew  :  "  And  she  shall  bring  forth  a  son,  and 
thou  shalt  call  his  name  Jesus ;  for  he  shall  save  his 
people  from  their  sins."  The  name  was  fairly  common 
among  the  Jews,  and  in  this  connection  it  is  equivalent 

1  Also  compare  Matthew  xii,  17. 


196  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

among  the  Hellenistic  Jews  to  the  name  Jason  or  Jasios, 
which  again  is  merely  a  Greek  version  of  Jesus.1  How 
did  it  come  about  that  the  unusual  name  Emmanuel  for 
the  saviour  of  Israel  was  displaced  by  the  commoner 
name  Jesus  ? 

Various  reasons  may  be  assigned  for  this.  First,  the 
fact  that  in  the  name  Jesus  the  symbolic  significance  of 
salvation  in  the  spiritual  and  bodily  sense,  as  Isaiah  attri- 
buted it  to  the  servant  of  God,  was  perceived  more  clearly, 
especially  among  the  dispersed  Jews.  Jaso  (from  iasthai, 
to  heal)  was  the  name  of  the  daughter  of  the  saver  and 
physician  Asclepios.  He  himself  was  in  many  places 
worshipped  under  the  name  of  Jason.  Thus  we  read  in 
Strabo  that  temples  and  the  cult  of  Jason  were  spread 
over  the  whole  of  Asia,  Media,  Colchis,  Albania,  and 
Iberia,  and  that  Jason  enjoyed  divine  honours  also  in 
Thessaly  and  on  the  Corinthian  gulf,  the  cult  of  Phrixos, 
the  ram  or  lamb,  being  associated  with  his  (i,  2,  39). 
Justin  tells  us  that  nearly  the  whole  of  the  west  wor- 
shipped Jason  and  built  temples  to  him  (xlii,  3),  and  this 
is  confirmed  by  Tacitus  (Annals,  vi,  34).  Jason  was  also 
supposed  to  be  the  founder  of  the  Lemnic  festivity,  which 
was  celebrated  yearly  at  the  beginning  of  spring,  and  was 
believed  to  impart  immortality  to  those  who  shared  in  it. 
Jasios  (Jasion)  was  called  Asclepios,  or  the  "mediating 
god  "  related  to  him  in  this  respect,  and  the  conductor  of 
souls,  Hermes,  at  Crete  and  in  the  famous  mysteries  of 
Samothracia,  which  enjoyed  the  greatest  repute  about  the 
beginning  of  the  present  era,  and  were  frequented  by  high 
and  low  from  all  the  leading  countries.2  Here  again  the 
idea  of  healing  and  saving  is  combined  in  the  name,  and 
would  easily  lead  to  the  giving  of  the  name  to  the  saviour 
of  the  Jewish  mystery-cult.  Epiphanius  (Hceres.  c,  xxix) 
clearly  perceived  this  connection  when  he  translated 
the  name  Jesus  "  healer"  or  "physician"  (curator, 

1  Compare  2  Mace.  iv.        a  Preller,  Griech.  MytJiologie,  1894,  p.  862. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  197 

therapeutes) .  It  is  certain  that  this  allusion  to  the  healing 
activity  of  the  servant  of  God  and  his  affinity  with  the 
widely  known  Jason  contributed  not  a  little  to  the 
acceptance  of  the  name  of  Jesus  and  to  its  apparent 
familiarity  in  ancient  times.1 

For  the  Jews  there  was  the  further  and  intimate 
relationship  of  the  saviour  to  the  Joshua  of  the  Old 
Testament.  As  Joshua,  as  successor  of  Moses  in  the 
leadership,  was  believed  to  have  conducted  the  Israelites 
from  the  bondage  of  Egypt  into  the  "  promised  land,"  the 
land  of  their  "  fathers,"  their  ancestral  home,  so  they 
expected  of  the  saviour  of  Israel  that  he  would  gather 


1  Jasius  is,  according  to  Vergil  (JEneid  iii,  168),  the  name  of  the  old 
Italian  god  Janus  Quirinus  ("Father  Jasius,  from  whom  our  race 
descends").  The  oldest  Roman  bronze  coinage,  on  one  side  of  which 
there  is  a  figure  of  Jasius  or  Janus,  takes  its  name  from  this — ass,  eis,  jes. 
According  to  the  Odyssey  (xvii,  443),  Jasus  (Jaso)  is  the  name  of  a 
powerful  king  of  Cyprus,'  whose  son  Dmeter  is  identical  with  Diomedes, 
a  name  under  which  Jason  was  worshipped,  with  sacrifice  of  horses,  by  the 
Veneti  on  the  Adriatic  Sea.  Under  the  name  Ischenos,  as  the  god  was 
also  called  by  the  Veneti,  Chronos  (Saturn- Janus)  was  honoured  every  five 
years  at  Elis  with  the  Ischenia  (Chronia,  Olympiada).  Ischenos  was 
supposed  to  have  been  the  lover  of  Coronis,  the  mother  of  Asclepios 
(Jason).  Jes  Crishna  was  the  name  of  the  ninth  incarnation  of  Jesnu,  or 
Vishnu,  whose  animal  is  the  fish,  as  in  the  case  of  Joshua,  the  son  of  the 
fish  Nun,  Ninus,  a  name  which  seems  itself  to  have  been  written  Nin-jes. 
Jes  is  a  title  of  the  sun.  Jesse  was  the  name  of  the  sun-god  of  the  southern 
Slavs.  Jasny  is  in  Slav  the  name  of  the  bright  sky,  and  Jas  is  still  a 
proper  name  among  the  people  of  the  Crimea  and  the  Caucasus.  The 
word  also  occurs  in  the  name  of  Osiris  =  Jes-iris  or  Hes-iris  (according  to 
Hellenicus),  in  Hesus  (the  name  of  a  Celtic  god),  in  Isskander,  as  the 
Persians  called  Alexander,  whom  they  revered  as  a  world-saviour  ;  and  in 
the  name  of  the  lower-Italian  people,  the  Jazygi,  Jesygi,  Jezidi,  or  Jesidi, 
which  was  related  to  the  Veneti.  Among  the  Mohammedans  the  word 
stands  for  "heretic."  The  Turks  give  the  name  to  a  detested  nomadic  race, 
which  apparently  worships  Jesus  Christ,  though  really  Jes  Crishna,  and  is 
distinguished  in  several  ways  both  from  the  Mohammedans  and  the 
Christians.  The  mother  of  all  these  gods  whose  name  contains  Jes  is  a 
virgin  (Maya,  Mariamma,  Maritala,  Mariam,  etc.) ;  her  symbol  is  the 
cross,  the  fish,  or  the  lamb  ;  her  feast  is  the  Huli  (Jul),  from  which  Caesar 
took  the  name  Julus  or  Julius  when  he  was  deified  in  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  Ammon  ;  and  her  history  agrees  in  essential  particulars  with  that 
of  Jesus  Christ.  See  the  proofs  in  the  important  work  of  Alex,  del  Mar, 
The  Worship  of  Augustus  Casar  (New  York,  1900).  In  this,  on  a  basis  of 
thorough  research,  it  is  shown  what  a  significance  the  Indian  Jes  had,  as 
regards  the  chronological  divisions,  in  the  whole  of  the  ancient  world, 
especially  in  the  reforms  of  the  calendar  under  Csesar  and  Augustus.  Our 
historians  and  theologians  ought  to  study  this  work  very  carefully.  See 
also  Volney's  Ruins,  p.  198. 


198  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

together  the  dispersed  Jews  and  lead  them  into  the 
coveted  land  of  their  "  fathers  " — that  is  to  say,  of  souls ; 
to  their  heavenly  home,  whence  the  souls  had  originally 
come,  and  whither  they  return  after  death.  He  was 
therefore  regarded  as  a  second  Joshua,  and  it  was  natural 
to  give  him  the  same  name. 

In  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  (about  the  year  115)  Joshua 
is  described  as  the  "  forerunner  of  Jesus  in  the  flesh  " 
(xii,  20).  Justin  also  stresses  the  relationship  of  Jesus 
with  the  Joshua  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  observes  that 
the  latter,  who  was  originally  called  Hosea  (Auses), 
received  the  name  of  Joshua  from  Moses,  not  by  chance, 
but  with  a  view  to  Christ,  whose  predecessor  in  leadership 
he  was  (Contra  Tryph.,  cxiii).  Eusebius  traces  not  only 
the  name  Jesus,  but  also  the  name  Christ,  to  Moses, 
saying :  "  The  first  to  recognise  the  name  Christ  as  one 
of  especial  veneration  and  repute  was  Moses.  He 
appointed  a  man  high-priest  of  god  in  the  highest  possible 
sense,  and  called  him  Christ.  In  this  way  he  settled  upon 
the  dignity  of  the  high-priesthood,  which  in  his  opinion 
far  transcends  all  other  human  prerogatives,  the  name 
Christ,  to  add  to  its  honour  and  splendour.1  The  same 
Moses,  enlightened  by  God,  also  clearly  knew  the  name 
Jesus,  and  honoured  it  with  a  great  distinction.  He  gave 
the  name  Jesus,  which  had  never  been  used  before  the 
time  of  Moses,  to  him  who,  he  knew,  would  after  his 
death — as  a  type  and  figure  of  Jesus — have  dominion 
over  all.  Thus  he  gave  to  his  successor,  who  had  not 
previously  been  called  Jesus — he  was  called  Nave  (Nun), 
as  his  parents  had  named  him — the  name  Jesus,  and 
meant  by  this  to  confer  on  him  a  distinction  greater  than 
the  diadem  of  a  king.  He  did  this  because  this  Jesus, 
the  son  of  Nave,  was  a  figure  of  our  redeemer,  who  alone 
would,  after  Moses  and  the  fulfilment  of  the  symbolical 
service  of  God  introduced  by  him,  enter  upon  the 

1  This  refers  to  Lev.  iv,  16,  where  it  is  said  in  the  Greek  translation  : 
Ho  hiereus,  )w  Christos  (the  high-priest,  the  anointed). 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  199 

dominion  of  the  true  and  pure  worship  of  God.  Thus 
did  Moses  give  to  the  two  men  who  then  stood  out  from 
the  whole  people  in  virtue  and  repute — namely,  the  high- 
priest  and  his  successor  as  leader  of  the  people — as  their 
highest  distinction,  the  name  of  our  saviour  Jesus  Christ  " 
(Eccl  Hist.,  I,  3). 

There  is,  however,  in  the  Old  Testament  a  high-priest 
Joshua,  who  plays  a  similar  part  to  that  of  Jesus  and  of 
the  successor  of  Moses  ;  he  also  is  supposed  to  gather  the 
dispersed  and  imprisoned  Jews,  and  lead  them  to  their  old 
home,  Palestine,  as  was  expected  of  the  Messiah.     We 
find  him  in  Ezra  iii,  2.     According  to  Zechariah  iii,  the 
prophet  sees  the  high-priest  Joshua  before  the  angel  of 
Jahveh,  and  Satan  standing  at  his  right  hand  to  accuse 
him.     But    the   angel   orders    the   dirty   clothes    to   be 
removed  from  him  and  be  replaced  by  festive  garments, 
and  promises  him  the  continuance  of  the  priesthood  if  he 
will  walk  in  the  ways  of  God.     He  calls  him  "  a  brand 
plucked  from  the  burning,"  just  as  the  saviour  Asclepios 
is   supposed   to  have   been  delivered   from  the  burning 
womb   of   his   mother   by   his   father   Apollo.     In   fact, 
Joshua  himself  is  represented  in  the  light  of  a  saviour, 
when  the  angel  speaks  of  him  and  his  companions  as  "  fore- 
signs  of  a  wonderful  future,"  and  refers  to  his  "  servant 
the  branch,"  who  is  to  come,  observing  that  Jahveh  will 
wipe  away  in  one  day  the  guilt  of  the  land.     It  is  true 
that  we  at  once  learn  that  the  "  branch  "  is  Zerubbabel, 
the   leader  of  the  Jews  of  David's  race,  in  whom  the 
prophet   saw   that  "branch"  which   Isaiah  (xi,  1)    had 
referred  to  the  coming  Messiah.     Nevertheless,  in  Zech. 
vi,  11,  the  prophet  puts  a  crown  on  the  head  of  Joshua,  as 
well  as  Zerubbabel,  and  they  are  placed  on  a  common 
throne.     But  the  Greek  text  of  the  prophet  was  altered, 
as  the  great  hopes  entertained  of  Zerubbabel  were  not 
fulfilled ;    the  name  of  Zerubbabel  was  struck  out,  the 
plural   (vi,  12)    changed   into   the  singular,  and   Joshua 
alone  was  represented  as  crowned,  and  was  raised  to  the 


200  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

rank  of  the  expected  Messiah.1  Thus  the  two  Joshuas, 
the  successor  of  Moses  and  the  high-priest,  blend  into  one 
person;  the  name  "Jesus"  received  a  Messianic  signifi- 
cance, and  came  to  be  used  for  the  "  branch "  of  the 
prophet  Isaiah. 

There  was,  therefore,  not  merely  a  pre-Christian  Christ, 
as  Gunkel  admits,  "  a  belief  in  the  death  and  resurrection 
of  Christ  in  Judaeo-syncretist  circles," 2  but  there  was  also 
a  pre-Christian  Jesus,  as  Jesus  and  Christ  were  only  two 
different  names  for  the  suffering  and  rising  servant  of  God, 
the  root  of  David  in  Isaiah;  and  the  two  might  be 
combined  when  one  wished  to  express  the  high-priesthood 
or  the  Messianic  character  of  Jesus.  Jesus  was  merely 
the  general  name  of  the  saviour  and  redeemer ;  and  if  on 
two  critical  occasions  in  the  history  of  Israel  a  Jesus  had 
saved  the  people  and  led  it  from  abroad  into  its  true  home, 
it  was  natural  to  suppose  that  on  the  third  occasion  also 
the  work  would  be  done  by  a  Jesus.8  Now,  if  his  very 
name  thus  becomes  ambiguous,  what  is  there  left  of  the 
historical  Jesus  ? 4 

(e)  The  Topography  of  the  Gospels. 

I.  NAZARETH. 

The  historical  Jesus  is  said  to  have  been  born  in 
Nazareth.  This,  however,  is,  in  turn,  anything  but 

1  Stade,  Gesch.  des  Volkes  Israel,  1888,  II,  p.  126,  note;  Hiihn,  Die 
messianisclien  Weissagungen  des  Israel.  Volkes,  1889,  p.  62. 

2  Zum  religionsgeschichtl.  Verstdndnis  des  Neuen  Testaments,  1903,  p.  82. 
8  The  possible  connection  of  Jesus  with  the  two  Joshuas  of  the  Old 

Testament  has  been  discussed  by  Robertson  and  by  M.  Bruckner  in  his 
Der  sterbende  und  auferstehende  GottJieiland,  although  the  latter  refrains 
from  drawing  any  "  particular  conclusions  as  to  the  pre-Christian  signifU 
cance  of  a  Joshua- Jesus "  (p.  39).  These  relations,  therefore,  cannot  be  so 
foolish  as  they  have  been  represented  when  we  find  them  discussed  by  a 
theologian  in  a  popular  religious  work  intended  for  general  circulation. 
The  excellent  Hebraist  Prof.  T.  K.  Cheyne  writes  in  the  Hibbert  Journal 
(April,  1911),  p.  658  :  "  The  direct  evidence  for  the  divine  name  Jeshua  or 
Joshua  in  pre-Christian  times  is  both  scant  and  disputable.  Yet  I  incline 
(on  grounds  of  my  own)  to  agree  with  Prof.  Drews  in  his  view  of  the  main 
point  in  dispute."  Cf .  p.  662  :  "  In  my  opinion  Prof.  Drews  and  his  authori- 
ties are  right  in  the  main." 

4  Consider,  also,  the  admission  of  Zimmera  that  the  name  "Jesus" 
might  "very  well  be  unhistorical,"  in  his  Zum  Streit  urn  die  Christus- 
mythe,  p.  4. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  201 

certain.  It  may  be  a  matter  of  chance  that  neither  the 
Old  Testament  nor  Josephus  nor  the  Talmud  mentions 
the  place ;  and,  except  in  the  gospels,  the  name  is 
unknown  until  the  fourth  century  (Eusebius,  Jerome, 
and  Epiphanius).  But  the  statement  of  Weiss,  that  it 
''cannot  be  denied  that  it  was  firmly  believed  by  the 
Christians  of  the  first  century  that  Jesus  came  from 
Nazareth  "  (p.  21),  is  wholly  unjustified,  and  is  based  only 
on  the  unproved  assumption  that  the  gospels  already 
existed  then  in  their  present  form.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  entirely  inadmissible  that  the  sect  of  the  Nazaraeans, 
as  the  followers  of  Jesus  are  first  called  in  Acts  (xxiv,  $),-' 
took  their  name  from  the  supposed  birthplace  of  their 
founder,  as  Nazareth  played  scarcely  any  part  in  the  life 
of  Jesus  which  was  known  to  them.  It  is  true  that 
Matthew  (ii,  23)  says  that  Jesus  received  his  epithet 
"  the  Nazaraios  "  from  Nazareth,  and  he  appeals  to  a 
passage  in  the  prophets.  But  no  such  passage  is  to  be 
found,  quite  apart  from  the  fact  that  in  that  case  he 
ought  to  be  called  a  "  Nazarethene,"  or  else  Nazareth,  his 
supposed  birthplace,  ought  to  be  called  Nazara;  this  is, 
indeed,  found  in  some  of  the  old  manuscripts,  and  has 
been  affirmed,  but  merely  in  order  to  harmonise  it  with 
the  name  Nazoraios,  Nazaraios,  or  Nazarene,  which  is 
given  to  Jesus  in  the  gospels. 

The  fact  is  that  the  name  only  occurs  in  the  latest 
stratum  of  the  gospels  (Matthew  ii,  23;  Luke  iv,  16), 
whereas  the  older  stratum  (Mark  vi,  1 ;  Matthew  xiii,  54) 
merely  speaks  of  his  "  native  town."  Mark  i,  9,  is  clearly 
only  an  amplification  of  the  older  reading  of  Matthew  iii,13, 
where  it  is  simply  said  that  Jesus  came  "from  Galilee"; 
and  Matthew  iv,  13,  and  xxi,  11,  are  plainly  interpolations, 
since  Nazareth  has  not  previously  been  mentioned.  The 
same  must  be  said  of  Matthew  xxvi,  71,  where  it  is 
written  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  in  accordance  with  the 
earlier  expression  of  the  evangelist.  On  the  other  hand, 
no  theologian  will  deny  that  the  story  of  the  childhood  in 


202  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

Luke  is  of  late  date.  In  Mark  Jesus  is  called  "  the 
Nazarene  "  in  i,  24 ;  x,  47 ;  xiv,  67  ;  and  xvi,  6,  without 
any  statement  that  this  indicates  the  place  of  his  origin. 
It  may,  therefore,  just  as  well  have  a  different  meaning, 
and  may  be  a  sect-name. 

This  is  the  view  of  William  B.  Smith.  In  his  opinion 
the  name  can  be  traced  to  the  ancient  root  N-Z-R,  which 
means  something  like  watcher,  protector,  guardian,  saviour. 
Hence  Jesus  the  Nazoraean  or  Nazarene  was  Jesus  the 
Protector,  just  as  Jahveh,1  or  the  archangel  Michael,  the 
"  angel-prince,"  who  often  takes  the  place  of  the  Messiah, 
is  known  as  the  "  protector  of  Israel,"  its  spokesman  with 
God,  and  its  deliverer  from  all  its  cares  (Daniel  xix, 
13,  and  xii,  1 ;  Gen.  xlviii,  16) ;  the  rabbinical  Metatron 
also  plays  this  part  of  protector  and  supporter  of  the 
Jewish  people,  and  is  regarded  as  the  "  angel  of  redemp- 
tion," especially  of  the  damned  suffering  in  hell.  The 
followers  of  Jesus  will,  therefore,  have  called  themselves 
Nazoraeans  because  they  primarily  conceived  the  expected 
Messiah  in  the  sense  of  a  Michael  or  Metatron,  a 
protector ;  that  is,  at  all  events,  more  probable  than  that 
they  took  their  name  from  the  place  Nazareth,  with  which 
they  had  no  close  connection.2  It  is  not  at  all  impossible 


1  Psalm  121.     The  fact  that  the  protector  is  here  called  schomer,  not 
nozer,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter,  any  more  than  the  fact  that  the 
Palestinians  of  the  time  about  the  birth  of  Christ  did  not  use  the  Hebrew 
nazar  for  "the  protector,"  but  the  Aramaic  ne'tar:  it  is  well  known  that 
the   language  of  a   sect   tends   to   preserve   antique  words,  and   we  are 
concerned  here,  not  with  the  word  itself,  but  its  meaning. 

2  Smith,  The  Pre-Christian  Jesus,  1906.     Also  see  his  article  on  "  The 
Eeal  Ancestry  of  Jesus  "  in  the  Open  Court,  January,  1910,  p.  12,  and  the 
article  "  The  Nazarene,"  by  Dr.  P.  Carus,  the  editor,  in  the  same  number 
(p.   26).      Differently  from  the  German  theologians,  who  cannot    speak 
disdainfully   enough    of    Smith's    hypotheses,    on    philological  grounds, 
Carus  admits  the  possibility  of  that  origin  of  the  name,  and  regards  the 
existence  of  a  place  called  Nazareth  at  the  time  of  Jesus  as  improbable. 
Indeed,  in  his  book  The  Pleroma  :  An  Essay  on  the  Origins  of  Christianity 
(1910),  he  says  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible  that  the  Nazarene  could 
mean  the  man  from  Nazareth  (p.  46).     Moreover,  Schmiedel  has  recently 
maintained  against  Weinel  in  the  Protestantenblatt,  1910,  Nr.  17,  p.  438, 
that  Smith's  hypothesis  is  philologically  admissible.     Hence  the  charge  of 
"  gross  ignorance  of  the  Semitic  languages "  which  Weinel  brings  against 
Smith  is  quite  unjustified. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  203 

that  the  place  Nazareth  took  its  name  from  the  sect  of 
the  Nazaraeans,  instead  of  the  reverse,  as  is  admitted  by 
so  distinguished  a  scholar  as  W.  Nestle.1  According  to 
the  Assyriologist  Haupt  (of  Baltimore),  Nazareth  was  a 
new  name  for  the  older  Hethlon  (Ezech.  xlvii,  15),  or 
Hittalon  or  Hinnathon,  which  means  "  protection,"  and 
has  reference  to  the  protected  position  of  Nazareth  among 
the  hills.  In  that  case  it  would  be  natural  for  the 
evangelist  to  choose  a  place  called  "  protection  "  as  the 
birthplace  of  the  "  protector." 

According  to  Mark  x,  47,  the  blind  Bartimeus,  hearing 
that  "  Jesus  the  Nazarene "  is  passing  by,  calls  out  to 
him,  "  Jesus,  thou  son  of  David."  It  is  possible  that  we 
have  here  another  indication  of  the  original  meaning  of 
the  name.  In  Isaiah  nazar  is  the  Hebrew  word  for  the 
"  branch,"  called  zemah  in  Zechariah  ;  and  he  is  called 
in  Isaiah  "  a  rod  from  the  stem  of  Jesse  " — that  is  to  say, 
a  "  son  (descendant)  of  David."  May  it  not  be  that  the 
expression  Nazaraean  or  Nazarene  also  contains  an 
allusion  to  the  "  branch,"  as  Robertson  suggests  ?2  If  the 
figure  of  Jesus,  and  even  his  name,  as  we  have  seen,  are 
derived  from  Isaiah,  it  is  natural  to  assume  that  his 
secondary  name  "  the  Nazarsean  "  may  also  be  traced  to 
the  same  source,  and  that  in  the  name  of  his  sect  there 
is  a  relation  to  the  prophet's  branch  of  David.  "  He 
grew  up  as  a  tender  plant,  a  nazar "  (Isaiah  liii,  2)  ; 
from  this  a  later  age  has  made  him  a  "  Nazarene  "  and 
put  his  birth  at  Nazareth.3  This  would  also  afford  a 

1  Sudwestdeutsche    Schulbl&tter,    1910,    Heft   4   and   5,   p.    163.      M. 
Bruckner  also  says,  in  regard  to  Smith's  hypothesis:  "His  proof  that  the 
epithet    '  Nazarsean  '   applied  to  Jesus    in  Matthew  ii,  23,  cannot  have 
been  derived  from  Nazareth ,  but  was  the  name  of  a  pre-Christian  Jewish 
sect,  especially  deserves  attention"  (p.  47).     In  Hugo  Winckler  we  read  : 
"  From  the  word  neqer  comes  the  name  of  the  religion  of  those  who  believe 
in  the  '  saviour ' — the  Nazarene-Christians  or  Nazaraeans.     Nazareth  as 
the  home  of  Jesus  is  merely  a  confirmation  of  his  character  as  saviour  for 
the    symbolising   tendency"  (Ex  oriente  lux,  Band  ii,  1906,  p.  59,  note). 
Cf.  also  Winckler,  Die  babyloniscJie  Geisteskultur  (1907),  p.  147. 

2  Cf.  also  Alfred  Jeremias,  Das  Alte  Testament  im  Lichte    des    alien 
Orients,  2  Aufl.,  1906,  pp.  353,  577. 

3  Possibly  nazar  also  has  an  astral   significance,  as    the    Hyades    in 


204  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

simple  explanation  of  the  curious  reference  in  Matthew 
ii,  23,  to  some  unknown  passage  in  the  prophets,  and  we 
need  not  suppose  that  Nazareth  only  became  the  name 
of  a  place  at  a  later  date  ;  it  may  have  existed  already, 
and  have  been  chosen  as  the  birthplace  of  Jesus  because 
of  its  connection  with  nazar. 

We  are  disposed  to  believe  that  the  sect  of  the 
Nazoraeans  was  originally  the  same  as  the  Nasiraeans, 
the  ''initiated"  or  "holy,"  who  were  distinguished  from 
the  rest  of  the  Jews  by  their  abstinence  from  oil  and 
wine  and  the  use  of  the  razor,  and  by  the  rigour  of  their 
lives ;  and  that  the  Nazoraeans  were  those  Nasiraeans  who 
conceived  the  expected  Messiah  in  the  sense  of  the  nazar 
of  Isaiah.  In  Lamentations  (iv,  7)  the  "  pure  "  are  called 
"  Nazar ites  "  [Nazar aeans] ,  and  Josephus  writes  Nazaraios 
in  Antiquities  iv,  4,  4,  but  Naziraios  in  xix,  6,  1. 

It  is  admitted  that  the  origin  of  Jesus  from  Nazareth 
is  in  contradiction  to  the  belief  that  the  Messiah  was  to 
be  born  in  Bethlehem  as  a  shoot  from  David.  But  it  is 
not  a  contradiction  between  the  Messianic  dogma  and  a 
"  hard  fact  of  history,"  as  Weiss  says  (p.  22) ;  it  is  due 
simply  to  the  fact  that  the  man  of  the  race  of  David  is 
called  by  the  prophet  a  "  branch  "  (nazar)  ;  and,  when 
men  began  to  make  an  historical  person  of  Jesus,  they 
found  the  agreement  of  the  word  with  Nazareth  a  very 
welcome  opportunity  to  conceal  the  real  origin  of  Jesus 
in  Isaiah.  The  contradiction  gave  no  more  trouble  to 
the  early  Christians  than  the  circumstance  that  possibly 
there  was  no  such  place  as  Nazareth  at  the  time  of  Jesus. 
There  was  also  probably  no  such  place  as  Capernaum, 
Emmaus,  Bethesda,  Nain,  Gethsemane,  or  Golgotha. 
And  if  our  opponents  say  that,  if  that  were  so,  the  story 
of  Jesus  would  have  betrayed  its  character  as  fiction,  and 
a  Jew  would  have  seen  the  defect  at  once,  we  may  remind 
them  that  the  massacre  of  the  children  at  Bethlehem,  the 

Taurus  have  the  form  of  a  branch  ;  and  Orion,  in  which  we  have  already 
suspected  the  Baptist,  seems  to  bring  the  "  twig  "  (Fuhrmann). 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  205 

wandering  about  of  people  to  be  included  in  the  census, 
the  astronomically  impossible  eclipse  of  the  sun,  which 
is  supposed  to  have  lasted  three  hours,  at  the  death  of 
Jesus,  and  many  other  details,  did  not  give  the  evangelists 
the  least  concern.  Even  to-day  the  pious  reader  of  the 
Bible  is  not  disquieted  by  these  things.  Nor  was  there 
any  fear  of  Jewish  objection  to  the  derivation  of  Jesus 
from  Nazareth,  because  the  process  of  the  historicisation 
of  the  Christ-myth  was  only  completed  at  a  time  when 
no  historical  evidence  whatever  of  the  real  origin  of  Jesus 
could  be  adduced,  since,  as  we  have  seen,  the  oldest 
gospel  uses  the  name  Nazaraean  probably  not  to  indicate 
the  birthplace  of  Jesus,  but  as  a  sect-name  with  reference 
to  the  "  protector  "or  "  saviour  "  and  the  nazar  of  Isaiah.1 

II.   JEEUSALEM. 

So  far,  then,  from  the  name  Nazarsean,  or  Nazorsean, 
or  Nazarene,  being  derived  from  the  town  of  Nazareth,  we 
must  say  that  this  is  the  least  probable  of  all  possible 
suggestions.  The  names  of  places  in  the  gospels,  in  fact, 
afford  no  evidence  whatever  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus, 
since  the  whole  topography  of  the  life  of  Jesus  is  in  its 
main  lines  borrowed  from  Isaiah  and  other  prophets.  So 
it  was  inevitable  that,  as  soon  as  the  process  began  to  be 
regarded  from  the  historical  point  of  view,  the  great 
drama  of  the  suffering  and  death  of  the  servant  of  God 
and  the  associated  redemption  of  mankind  should  be 
located  in  Jerusalem.  As  Luke  says  (xiii,  33 — see  also 
Psalm  cxvi,  14-19)  :  "  It  cannot  be  that  a  prophet  perish 
out  of  Jerusalem."  It  is  the  unvarying  theme  of  the 
prophets  that  Jerusalem  will  be  glorified  by  Jahveh,  and 
become  the  centre  of  the  world's  history  (Isaiah  Ixii,  7). 
In  the  prophet  Zechariah  we  read  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  city : — 

And  they  shall  look  upon  me  whom  they  have  pierced, 

1  Compare  Robertson,  Christianity  and  Mythology,  p.  311,  and  P.  van 
Dyk's  Krit.  Kommentar  zu  den  Evangelien,  pp.  28  and  152. 


206  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

and  they  shall  mourn  for  him,  as  one  mourneth  for  his 
only  son,  and  shall  be  in  bitterness  for  him,  as  one  that  is 
in  bitterness  for  his  firstborn. 

In  that  day  shall  there  be  a  great  mourning  in  Jeru- 
salem, as  the  mourning  of  Hadadrimmon  in  the  valley  of 
Megiddon. 

And  the  land  shall  mourn,  every  family  apart ;  the 
family  of  the  house  of  David  apart,  and  their  wives  apart 
(xii,  10-12). 

On  Jerusalem  the  eyes  of  the  whole  nation  are  bent. 
There  will  their  desire  be  consummated.  From  there 
will  salvation  spread  over  the  earth,  and  judgment  be 
meted  out  to  men  (Isaiah  ii). 

"  Behold,  I  lay  in  Zion  for  a  foundation  a  stone,  a  tried 
stone,  a  precious  corner-stone,  a  sure  foundation  "  (Isaiah 
xxviii,  16).  "And  he  shall  be  for  a  sanctuary,  for  a 
stone  of  stumbling  and  for  a  rock  of  offence  to  both  the 
houses  of  Israel,  for  a  gin  and  for  a  snare  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Jerusalem.  And  many  among  them  shall 
stumble,  and  fall,  and  be  broken,  and  be  snared,  and  be 
taken  "  (Isaiah  viii,  14,  15 — see  also  xxviii,  13).  So  the 
evangelist  makes  Jesus  say,  with  reference  to  the  prophet: 
"  The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected,  the  same  is 

become  the  head  of  the  corner   [Psalm  cxviii,  22] 

Therefore  I  say  unto  you :  The  kingdom  of  God  shall 
be  taken  from  you  and  given  to  a  nation  bringing  forth 
the  fruits  thereof.  And  whosoever  shall  fall  on  this 
stone  shall  be  broken  ;  but  on  whomsoever  it  shall  fall, 
it  will  grind  him  to  powder"  (Matthew  xxi,  42-44). 
In  Isaiah  the  prophet  speaks  in  the  same  vein  to  those 
who  held  Jahveh  holy,  his  "disciples":  "Behold,  I  and 
the  children  whom  the  Lord  hath  given  me  are  for  signs 
and  for  wonders  in  Israel  from  the  Lord  of  hosts,  which 
dwelleth  in  mount  Zion  "  (viii,  18).  "  He  that  is  left  in 
Zion,  and  he  that  remaineth  in  Jerusalem,  shall  be  called 
holy,  even  every  one  that  is  written  among  the  living  in 
Jerusalem"  (iv,  3).  So  the  Tarsic  tent-maker  Paul  calls 
the  Christians  in  Jerusalem  "the  saints";  and  we  are 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  207 

reminded  of  Acts,  of  the  Pentecostal  gathering,  and  the 
first  Christian  propaganda,  when  it  is  written  : — 

As  one  whom  his  mother  comforteth,  so  will  I  comfort 
you ;  and  ye  shall  be  comforted  in  Jerusalem 

It  shall  come,  that  I  will  gather  all  nations  and  tongues  ; 
and  they  shall  come,  and  see  my  glory. 

And  I  will  set  a  sign  among  them,  and  I  will  send  those 
that  escape  of  them  unto  the  nations,  to  Tarshish  [!] ,  Pul, 

and  Lud to  the  isles  afar  off,  that  have  not  heard  my 

fame,  neither  have  seen  my  glory ;  and  they  shall  declare 
my  glory  among  the  Gentiles. 

And  they  shall  bring  all  your  brethren  for  an  offering 

unto  the  Lord to  my  holy  mountain  Jerusalem,  saith 

the  Lord,  as  the  children  of  Israel  bring  an  offering  in  a 
clean  vessel  into  the  house  of  the  Lord. 

And  I  will  also  take  of  them  for  priests  (Isaiah  Ixvi, 
13-21). 

In  what  does  this  comfort  consist  that  Jahveh  promises 
to  his  people  ?  He  himself  will  come  as  the  king  of 
Israel,  and  lead  his  own  towards  Jerusalem :  "  How 
beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet  of  him  that 
bringeth  good  tidings,  that  publisheth  peace ;  that 
bringeth  good  tidings  of  good,  that  publisheth  salvation ; 
that  saith  unto  Zion,  Thy  God  reigneth  "!  (Isaiah  lii,  7 — 
compare  xii,  6).  "  Go  through,  go  through  the  gates; 
prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  people ;  cast  up,  cast  up  the 

highway;    gather    out    the    stones Say   ye    to    the 

daughter  of  Zion,  Behold,  thy  salvation  cometh ;  behold, 
his  reward  is  with  him,  and  his  work  before  him.  And 
they  shall  call  them,  The  holy  people,  The  redeemed  of 
the  Lord ;  and  thou  shalt  be  called,  Sought  out,  A  city 
not  forsaken  "  (Isaiah  Ixii,  10 — see  also  xxvi,  2).  The 
prophet  refers  the  words  immediately  to  Jahveh.  But 
we  have  already  seen  how  Jahveh  is  constantly  identified 
with  the  figure  of  the  servant  of  God  and  redeemer. 
How  easily  might  the  story  of  the  entry  into  Jerusalem 
develop  from  these  passages ! 

"  Rejoice  greatly,  0  daughter  of  Zion  ;  shout,  0  daughter 
of   Jerusalem,"   says   the  prophet  Zechariah   (ix,  9),  in 


208  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

similar  words  to  those  of  Isaiah :  "  Behold,  thy  king 
cometh  unto  thee  :  he  is  just,  and  having  salvation  ;  lowly 
and  riding  upon  an  ass,  and  upon  a  colt  the  foal  of  an  ass." 
Hence,  in  Matthew  xxi,  2,  Jesus  bids  the  disciples  bring 
him  the  ass  and  its  foal  that  they  shall  find,  the  evangelist 
having  in  mind  also  the  words  of  Genesis  xlix,  11  : 
"  Binding  his  foal  unto  the  vine,  and  his  ass's  colt  unto 
the  choice  vine."  And  Mark  (xi,  2)  adds  to  the  words  of 
Jesus  that  no  man  had  yet  ridden  the  ass,  because  it  is 
said  in  Numbers  (xix,  2)  that  a  faultless  cow  "  upon  which 
never  came  yoke  "  shall  be  brought  to  the  priest  Eleazar.1 
The  hosanna  of  the  people  and  their  cry,  "  Blessed  is 
he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  "  (Matthew 
xxi,  9),  are  taken  from  the  118th  Psalm:  "  Save  now,  I 
beseech  thee,  0  Lord  ["  Save  now  "  is  the  meaning  of  the 
Hebrew  hoschia-na,  which  the  evangelist  seems  wrongly 
to  have  taken  to  be  a  cry  of  joy !]  :  Blessed  is  he  that 
cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  "  (26).  The  words  that 
Jesus  is  supposed  ^to  have  said  about  his  followers  on 
entering  into  Jerusalem,  "  If  these  should  hold  their 
peace,  the  stones  would  immediately  cry  out "  (Luke 
xix,  40),  are  based  on  the  prophet  Habakkuk :  "  For  the 
stone  shall  cry  out  of  the  wall  "  (ii,  11).  Even  the  name 
"  Gethsemane,"  which  is  nowhere  else  found  as  the  name 
of  a  place,  is,  as  Smith  observes,  inspired  by  Isaiah.  The 
name  means  "  oil-press,"  or  "  olive-press."  It  seems  to 
refer  to  Isaiah  Ixiii,  2,  where  it  is  said  of  Jahveh : 
"  Wherefore  art  thou  red  in  thine  apparel,  and  thy 
garments  like  him  that  treadeth  in  the  press  [Hebrew 
gath]  ?  "  "I  have  trodden  the  press  alone,"  says  Jahveh  ; 
"  and  of  the  people  there  was  none  with  me ;  for  I  will 
tread  them  in  mine  anger  and  trample  them  in  my  fury ; 
and  their  blood  shall  be  sprinkled  upon  my  garments,  and 
I  will  stain  all  my  raiment.  For  the  day  of  vengeance  is 
in  mine  heart,  and  the  year  of  my  redeemed  is  come. 

1  Compare  Deut.  xxi,  3. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  209 

And  I  looked,  and  there  was  none  to  help;  and  I 
wondered  that  there  was  none  to  uphold ;  therefore  mine 
own  arm  brought  salvation  unto  me."  Here  we  have  a 
clear  relation  to  the  abandonment  of  Jesus  on  Gethsemane 
and  his  comforting  by  an  angel  (Luke  xxii,  43),  and  the 
reference  to  the  blood  (Luke  xxii,  44)  accords.  Jahveh's 
vengeance  on  the  Gentiles  is  transformed  in  the  gospels 
into  the  contrary  act  of  the  self-oblation  of  Jesus ;  and 
whereas  in  Isaiah  it  is  the  wine  of  anger  and  vengeance 
that  flows  from  the  press,  here  it  is  the  oil  of  healing 
and  salvation  that  pours  from  the  press  (gath)  over  the 
peoples. 

Like  Gethsemane,  Golgotha,  "the  place  of  skulls,"  is 
another  place  that  we  cannot  verify.  It  is  possible  that 
the  name  is  connected  with  the  pillars  (golgoi)  of  the 
western-Asiatic  mother  of  the  gods,  and  points  to  an 
ancient  Jebusitic  centre  of  the  cult  of  Adonis  under  the 
name  Golgos.  But  possibly  there  is  an  astral  element, 
seeing  that  Matthew  (xxvii,  33)  makes  the  word  mean 
"  place  of  skulls  "  (from  the  Hebrew  gulguleth,  the  skull), 
and  suggests  the  skull  or  beaker  (skull  as  a  drinking 
vessel)  which  is  found  under  the  vernal  cross  in  the 
heavens.1 

III.   GALILEE. 

According  to  the  gospels,  the  Saviour  does  not  at  first 
live  in  the  holy  city.  Whence  did  he  come  ?  Again  we 
find  the  answer  in  Isaiah  :  "I  have  raised  up  one  from 
the  north  "  (xli,  25).  In  the  north  is  Galilee,  of  which 
it  is  said  in  the  prophet :  "  At  the  first  he  lightly  afflicted 
the  land  of  Zebulun  and  the  land  of  Naphtali,  and  after- 
ward did  more  grievously  afflict  her  by  the  way  of  the 
sea,  beyond  Jordan,  in  Galilee  of  the  nations.  The 
people  that  walked  in  darkness  have  seen  a  great  light ; 
they  that  dwell  in  the  land  of  the  shadow  of  death,  upon 


1  Niemojewski,  p.  420.     Reflect  on   the   familiar  pictures  of  a  cup  or 
skull  at  the  foot  of  the  crucifix. 


210  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

them  hath  the  light  shined  "  (Isaiah  ix,  1-2).  That,  in 
point  of  fact,  Galilee  was  generally  regarded  as  the  land 
from  which  the  Messiah  would  come  is  confirmed  by 
the  Talmud,  which  says  that,  as  the  Galileans  were  the 
first  to  be  driven  into  exile,  they  should  be  the  first  to 
receive  consolation,  in  harmony  with  the  law  of  com- 
pensation which  governs  all  the  divine  plans.1  Hence 
the  following  words  of  the  prophet  might  be  referred  to 
the  Galileans  and  their  rejoicing  :  "  They  joy  before  thee 
according  to  the  joy  in  harvest,  and  as  men  rejoice 

when  they  divide  the  spoil For  unto  us  a  child  is 

born,  unto  us  a  son  is  given  ;  and  the  government  shall 
be  upon  his  shoulder :  and  his  name  shall  be  called 
Wonderful,  Counsellor,  The  mighty  God,  The  everlasting 
Father,  The  Prince  of  Peace.  Of  the  increase  of  his 
government  and  peace  there  shall  be  no  end,  upon  the 
throne  of  David,  and  upon  his  kingdom,  to  order  it,  and 
to  establish  it  with  judgment  and  with  justice  from 
henceforth  even  for  ever"  (Isaiah  ix,  3,  6,  7). 

Hence  it  is  the  word  of  the  prophet,  not  a  "  hard  fact 
of  history,"  that  demands  the  birth  of  the  Saviour  in 
Galilee.  Then  Nazareth,  with  its  relation  to  nazar, 
occurred  at  once  as  the  proper  birthplace  of  Jesus,  as 
soon  as  men  began  to  conceive  the  episode  historically. 

Astral  considerations  may  have  co-operated.  Galilee, 
from  galil— circle,  connects  with  the  zodiacal  circle 
which  the  sun  traverses ;  even  in  the  prophet  the 
Saviour  is  identified  with  the  sun.  The  "  people  that 
walk  in  darkness  "  and  that  "  dwell  in  the  land  of  the 
shadow  "  might  easily  be  identified  with  the  "familiar 
spirits "  of  whom  Isaiah  speaks  (viii,  19),  in  whom 
"  there  is  no  light,"  who  "  pass  through"  the  land  "  hardly 
bestead  and  hungry ;  and  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that 
when  they  shall  be  hungry,  they  shall  fret  themselves 
and  curse  their  king  and  their  God,  and  look  upward ; 

1  Sohar  on   Exodus,  quoted   by  Gfrtirer,  Das  Jahrhundert  des  Heils, 
1838,  ii,  p.  231. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  211 

and  they  shall  look  unto  the  earth,  and  behold  trouble 
and  darkness,  dimness  of  anguish,  and  they  shall  be 
driven  to  darkness."  They  suggest  the  souls  in  the 
nether  world,  the  stars  in  their  course  below  the  celestial 
equator,  which  "  rejoice "  at  the  birth  of  the  "  great 
light "  at  the  winter  solstice  and  are  led  to  their  time  of 
brilliancy.  On  this  view  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles  (Galil- 
ha-goim)  coincides  with  the  lower  half,  the  "  water- 
region,"  of  the  zodiac,  in  which  are  found  the  aquatic 
signs  of  the  southern  fish,  Aquarius,  the  Fishes,  the 
Whale,  and  Eridanus.1  We  thus  understand  why  "  Galilee, 
the  way  to  the  sea,  the  land  by  the  Jordan,"  plays  so 
great  a  part  in  the  story  of  Jesus ;  it  was  bound  to  be 
recognised  in  a  Messianic  age.  Hence  this  "  watery 
region  "  of  the  sky  is  the  chief  theatre  of  the  Saviour's 
life ;  hence  in  the  gospels  the  "  Sea  of  Galilee,"  the  Sea 
of  Genesareth,  and  the  many  names  of  places  in  the 
district.  For  the  Greeks  and  Romans  they  had  no 
ulterior  significance,  and  were  mere  names,  but  much 
like  the  names  of  places  in  Homer  or  Vergil,  or  the 
description  of  the  voyage  of  the  Argonaut  by  Apollonius 
of  Ehodes.  It  is  incredible  that  von  Soden  should  seek 
a  proof  of  the  historicity  of  the  gospel  narrative  in  these 


names.2 


1  In  truth,  Zebulun,  according  to  Genesis  xlix,  relates  to  the  sign  of  the 
zodiac  Capricorn  and  Naphtali  to  Aries,  both  of  which  belong  to  the  water- 
region  of  the  zodiac,  the  dark  part  of  the  year.     (Cf.  A.  Jeremias,  Das  Alte 
Testament  im  Lichte  des  alien  Orients,  p.  398.)     According  to  M.  Miiller, 
galil  means,   in   a   derivative   from  the  Coptic,    the   "  water-wheel."     A 
water-wheel  might  (according  to  Fuhrmann)  be  traced   in  the  constel- 
lation Orion,  the  spokes  being  represented  by  the  four  chief  stars  and 
the  axis  by  the  stars  of  the  belt,  the  wheel  being  set  in  motion  by  the 
falling  "water "  of  the  Milky  Way.     In  so  far  as  Orion  is  the   hanging 
figure  of  the  22nd  Psalm,  we  may  note  that  the  latter  is  a  galil  (Galilean), 
and  as  the  constellation  Orion  is,  as  we  saw,  astrally  related  to  the  nazar 
(the  Hyades),  the  birth  of  the  Saviour  in  Nazareth  might   be   deduced 
from  this.     See  Niemojewski,  pp.  161  and  193. 

2  Work   quoted,    p.    21.      Herr    von    Soden's    attempt    to    prove    the 
historicity  of  Jesus  from  the  "  smell  of  the  soil  of  Palestine  "  seems  to  me 
much  the  same  as  if  one  were  to  conclude  that  Tell  was  historical  because 
of  the  many  place-names  in  the  legend.     A  Swiss  hotel-keeper  might  do 
that,  but — a  student  of  history  ! 


212  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  Jordan  has  an  astral 
significance  in  the  gospels,  and  corresponds  to  the 
celestial  Eridamis  (Egyptian,  iero  or  iera=ihe  river)  or 
to  the  Milky  Way.  It  may  be  the  same  with  other 
supposed  names  of  places.  In  regard  to  the  most 
important  of  them  all,  Capernaum,  Steudel  has  called 
attention  to  Zech.  xiii,  1,  where  it  is  said :  "  In  that  day 
there  shall  be  a  fountain  opened  to  the  house  of  David 
and  to  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  for  sin  and  for 
uncleanness,"  and  reminds  us  that  in  his  Jewish  War 
(iii,  10,  8)  Josephus  mentions  a  "very  strong"  and 
fertilising  spring  "  which  is  called  Capharnaum  by  the 
inhabitants  of  the  district."  When  we  read  in  Josephus 
the  description  of  the  fish-abounding  Sea  of  Genesareth 
and  the  country  about  it,  with  its  beauty  and  charm,  its 
palms,  nuts,  figs,  olives,  and  fruit-trees  of  all  kinds,  we 
feel  that  no  other  "knowledge  of  the  locality"  was 
needed  in  order  to  "  invent "  the  whole  regional  back- 
ground of  the  life  of  Jesus  with  the  aid  of  these 
indications. 

(/)  The  Chronology  of  the  Gospels. — Not  only  is  the 
topography  of  the  gospels  clearly  based  on  Isaiah,  but,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  the  chronological  frame  of  the 
events  described  in  them  presents  very  serious  difficulties. 
Many  names  of  supposed  historical  persons  in  the  gospels 
seem  to  have  been  originally  of  an  astral  character,  and 
to  have  been  later  pressed  into  the  historical  scheme ; 
such  are  Herod,  the  high-priests  Annas  and  Caiaphas, 
and  Pilate.  There  is  hardly  anything  related  about  them 
that  agrees  with  the  facts  known  to  us  in  other  ways,  but 
it  agrees  very  well  with  astral  features  and  constellations.1 

1  Niemojewski,  pp.  367,  370.  The  high-priest  Annas,  who  is  supposed 
to  have  held  office  with  Caiaphas,  is  identical  in  name  with  the  prophetess 
Anna  (Sib-Zi-Anna  of  the  Babylonians,  Anna  Perenna  of  the  Romans), 
and  according  to  Niemojewski  (p.  367)  corresponds  to  the  star  7  in 
Gemini,  but  according  to  Fuhrmann  to  the  constellation  Cassiopeia 
which  dwells  "in  the  temple,"  or  at  the  highest  point  of  the  Milky 
Way.  Caiaphas  is  clearly,  in  that  case,  the  constellation  Cepheus,  near 
Cassiopeia  ;  and  the  two  names  were  subsequently  applied  to  the  Jewish 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  213 

The  conception  of  the  just  one  as  "hanging"  and  the 
symbolic  transformation  of  the  martyr's  stake  into  the 
mystic  form  of  the  cross  as  a  sign  of  fire  and  life,  corre- 
sponding to  the  constellation  Orion,  suggested  the  idea  of 
making  the  servant  of  God  and  life-bringer,  who  dies  on 
the  cross,  be  put  to  death  by  the  Komans,  not  the  Jews, 
as  the  Jews  killed  the  blasphemer  by  stoning.  This 
settled  the  period  for  the  story  of  Jesus.  It  can  also  be 
imagined  that  the  figure  of  Augustus  had  some  influence 
on  this  ;  it  would  be  natural  to  oppose  to  the  Eoman  lord 
of  the  world,  whose  reign  opened  a  new  era  of  history  and 
who  was  greeted  as  saviour  and  redeemer  of  the  world, 
the  true  saviour  in  the  person  of  Jesus,  born  in  his  time.1 
Then  there  was,  perhaps,  a  more  general  reason  for 
fixing  the  time  of  the  death  of  Jesus.  According  to 
Luke's  gospel,  Jesus  must  have  died  in  the  year  29. 
As  he  died  in  the  same  year  as  John,  and  John,  according 
to  the  indications  in  Josephus,  died  shortly  before  the 
year  36,  Keim2  and  others  have  assigned  the  death  of  the 
saviour  to  that  year.  Keim  recalls  the  general  feeling  of 
strain  in  the  Eoman  Empire  in  the  year  34,  and  with 
this  he  connects  the  appearance  of  the  Baptist.  At  Rome 
the  death  of  Tiberius  was  expected  daily.  The  Parthians 
threatened  from  the  east,  and  their  prince  Artabanes  had 
wrested  Armenia  from  the  Romans  and  turned  his  atten- 
tion to  Syria.  About  the  same  time  great  events  were 
announced  in  Egypt,  which  seemed  to  indicate  the  opening 
of  a  new  epoch.  In  the  year  34  it  was  believed  that  the 
fabulous  phoenix,  which  came  every  five  hundred  years  to 
Heliqpolis  to  burn  itself  and  rise  again  rejuvenated,  had 
been  seen.  The  phoenix  was  connected  with  the  Messianic 

high-priests  on  account  of  the  similarity.  The  Talmud  enumerates  the 
names  of  the  principal  men  who  directed  the  sanhedrim  from  Antigonas 
(B.C.  250)  until  the  destruction  of  the  temple  ;  a  Caiaphas  is  not  to  be 
found  among  the  number.  He  was  high  priest  for  eighteen  years  ;  but 
this  also  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Talmud,  although  it  gives  the  names  of 
all  who  have  been  high  priests  for  ten  years  or  more. 

1  Compare  Del  Mar,  The  Worship  of  Augustus  Ccesar. 

2  Geschichte  Jesu,  1873. 


214  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

expectation  of  the  Jews.  Just  as  the  marvellous  bird 
destroyed  itself  at  the  close  of  each  world-epoch  and  re- 
created itself,  so  the  Messiah  was  expected  as  the  creator 
of  a  new  world.1  The  whole  world  was  discussing  the 
extraordinary  event  at  the  time,  and  it  may  have  con- 
tributed to  the  locating  at  that  period  of  the  death  of  the 
saviour  and  his  glorious  resurrection  from  the  flames  of 
the  old  world. 

Further,  the  Hindoo  Krishna,  who,  as  saviour,  con- 
queror of  dragons,  and  "  crucified,"  is  in  many  respects 
as  like  Jesus  as  one  egg  is  like  another,  was  said  to  have 
predicted  at  his  death  that  the  fourth  world -period, 
Kaliyuga,  the  iron-age,  would  commence  thirty-six  years 
afterwards,  and  men  would  become  wicked  and  miserable. 
For  the  Jews  the  year  70,  in  which  Jerusalem  was  taken 
and  the  temple,  the  national  sanctuary  and  centre  of  the 
faith,  destroyed,  was  the  turning-point  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  It  was  the  year  of  the  great  judgment  on  the 
Jews,  as  Isaiah  had  predicted,  the  coming  of  which  the 
saviour  was  supposed  to  forecast.  Reckoning  backwards, 
this  again  gives  the  year  34  as  that  of  the  death  of  Jesus, 
and  agrees  with  the  idea  that  the  gospels  reached  their 
present  form  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  second  century,  in 
the  terrible  period  when  the  Jews  and  Christians  began 
to  separate,  as  Lublinski  has  so  vividly  shown.3 

1  We  may  recall  that  Joseph,  who  was  believed  to  have  been  sold  into 
Arabia,  gone  from  there  to  Egypt,  and  married  the  daughter  of  the  priest 
at  On  (Heliopolis),  bore  in  Egypt  the  name  Zaphnat  Phanech  ("biding  of 
the  phoenix  " — that  is  to  say,  of  the  sun  or  year-god — in  the  five  Epago- 
mena  or  intercalary  days  during  which  the  old  year  passes  into  the  new). 
Joseph  was  a  kind  of  Adonis  or  Tammuz  ;  he  was  a  foretype  of  the  Messiah, 
and  is  called  even  in  Apollodorus  (iii,  14,  4)  a  "son  of  the  Phoenix,"  just 
as  Joshua  is  called  a  son  of  the  dove  (Semiramis-Mirjam),  and  Asclepios 
a  son  of  the  crow,  from  whose  burning  womb  he  was  delivered.  See 
Gruppe,  Gricch.  Mythologie,  ii,  p.  144,  where  it  is  suggested  that  the  myth 
of  the  birth  of  Asclepios  may  be  a  version  of  the  legend  of  the  phoenix. 
Jesus  also  seems  originally  to  have  had  a  dove  for  mother,  as  the  baptism 
in  the  Jordan  was,  according  to  some,  the  act  of  birth  of  the  saviour  ;  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,  who  descended  on  him  in  fire  and  flame  in  the  form  of  a 
dove,  was  represented  in  certain  Gnostic  sects  as  "  the  mother  of  Jesus  " 
(The  Christ-Myth). 

a  Compare  A.  Kniepf,  Zelin  Thesen  zur  natilrlicJten  Welt-  und  Lebens- 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  215 

Whether  this  is  so  or  not,  we  have  no  certain  date  of 
the  death  of  the  saviour,  and  every  attempt  to  reconcile 
the  contradictory  indications  is  futile.1  These  facts,  how- 
ever, enable  us  to  suspect  why,  when  the  myth  of  the 
servant  of  God  began  to  assume  historical  form,  his  death 
was  fixed  about  the  year  30  of  our  era.  The  life  of  Jesus 
may  for  a  long  time  have  been  told  unhistorically  as  far 
as  any  definite  period  of  time  is  concerned  ;  possibly  it  was 
originally  astral,  as  Niemojewski  believes.  We  can  only 
repeat  that  from  the  chronological  point  of  view  also  there 
is  no  need  whatever  to  take  the  supposed  historical  data  of 
the  gospels  seriously.  That  is  unfortunate  for  those  who 
represent  them  as  history,  as  they  for  the  most  part  derive 
their  material  from  the  gospels  alone.  It  is  quite  time 
to  listen  to  the  learned  Jews  (Graetz,  Joel,  Chwolson, 
Lippe,  Lublinski)  who  say  that  in  point  of  fact  it  is 
the  conditions  of  the  second,  not  the  first,  century 
that  have  provided  the  framework  of  the  gospel  story 
in  detail.  The  Gnostic  sects,  from  which  Christianity 
originated,  knew  at  first  only  an  astral  Jesus,  whose 
mythic  " history"  was  composed  of  passages  from  the 
prophets,  Isaiah,  the  twenty-second  Psalm,  and  Wisdom. 
In  this  they  were  not  far  removed  from  the  Pharisees, 
who,  being  "  believers  in  fate,"  as  we  know  from  Josephus 
and  the  Talmud,  also  favoured  astrological  ideas.2  It  was 
only  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  when  the 

atiscliauung,  1903,  p.  34.  Notice  also  the  story  of  Jesus,  the  son  of  Ananus, 
told  by  Josephus,  which  happened  shortly  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusa- 
lem (see  further  below),  and  may  also  be  a  reason  for  putting  the  death  of 
the  evangelical  Jesus  about  that  time. 

1  This  applies  also  to  the  attempt  to  determine  the  date  of  the  cruci- 
fixion that  is  made  from  time  to  time  on  astronomical  grounds.     To  all 
such  speculations  we  may  say  that  eclipses,  earthquakes,  and  other  natural 
catastrophes  are  part  of  the  standing  requisites  in  descriptions  of  the  birth 
and  death  of  saviours,  such  as  Krishna,  Buddha,  Dionysos,  etc.     Even  at 
Caesar's  birth  a  remarkable  star  is  supposed  to  have  announced  the  event, 
and    an   earthquake   is   said  to  have   taken  place    at   his  death.     Much 
the  same  is  related  about  the  birth  and  death  of  Augustus,  whose  life, 
moreover,  is  made  to  resemble  that  of  the  divine  saviour  in  many  respects 
by  contemporary  writers.    See  Alex,  del  Mar,  pp.  92,  99,  124,  162,  and  169. 

2  Cf.  E.  Bischof,  Babylonisch-Astraks  im  Weltbilde  des  Talmud  imMid- 
rasch,  1907. 


216 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


Pharisees  abandoned  these  speculations  and  adhered 
strictly  to  the  law — indeed,  expressly  combated  the 
fancies  of  astral  mythology — and  when  the  new  faith 
spread  to  wider  circles  which  did  not  understand  the 
astral  meaning  of  the  Jesus-myth  and  regarded  the  myth 
as  a  real  history,  that  the  knowledge  of  the  astral  features 
was  gradually  lost,  and  people  began  to  seek  standing- 
ground  for  the  story  of  Jesus  in  the  real  course  of  events. 

The  Gnostics  of  the  second  century,  however,  still  held 
in  principle  the  astral  character  of  the  story  of  the  saviour, 
and  possibly  we  have  an  echo  of  the  increasing  struggle 
against  the  narrowness  and  one-sidedness  of  the  Pharisaic 
view  by  those  who  were  "  initiated  "  into  the  "  mysteries  " 
of  the  astral  doctrine  in  the  words  of  Jesus  to  the  scribes : 
"  Woe  unto  you,  lawyers,  for  ye  have  taken  away  the 
key  of  knowledge;  ye  entered  not  in  yourselves,  and 
them  that  were  entering  in  ye  hindered"  (Luke  xi,  52). 

(g)  The  Pre-Christian  Jesus. — We  saw  that  there  was 
a  pre-Christian  Christ  as  well  as  a  pre-Christian  Jesus. 
In  both  cases  Isaiah  furnished  the  immediate  occasion  for 
the  figure.  There  was  a  belief  in  the  suffering  and  the 
death  of  the  ''servant  of  God,"  his  resurrection  and 
exaltation  by  God,  and  the  spiritual  and  corporal  redemp- 
tion of  men  by  this  means,  as  the  Jews  expected  of  their 
Messiah.  The  servant  of  God,  it  is  true,  was  not  himself, 
in  his  human  lowliness  and  poverty,  to  be  the  Messiah, 
for  with  the  Messiah  was  associated  the  idea  of  a  worldly 
conqueror  triumphing  over  the  enemies  of  Israel,  restoring 
the  power  of  David,  a  powerful  lord  of  life  and  death, 
descending  from  heaven  to  judge  sinners,  to  found  a  new 
heaven  and  new  earth,  and  inaugurating  a  golden  age  for 
his  followers  (Isaiah  Ixv).  But  his  appearance  on  earth 
was  to  be  the  condition  for  the  coming  of  the  Messiah, 
and  his  death  was  to  be  the  great  expiation  for  the  guilt 
of  men,  without  which  the  Jews  could  not  share  the  glory 
of  the  Messianic  kingdom  (Isaiah  Iviii).  The  figure  of 
the  servant  of  God,  moreover,  sometimes  blended  with 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  217 

that  of  Jahveh  himself,  and  it  was  he  who  was  to  hold 
the  last  judgment  and  lead  his  people  into  the  coveted 
kingdom  (Isaiah  xiii,  7 ;  xxv,  xxvi,  xxxi,  etc.) ;  at  other 
times  he  seemed  to  be  a  special  being,  beside  or  below 
Jahveh,  the  "  son  of  God,"  or  the  representative  of  "  the 
just,"  who,  according  to  Plato  and  Wisdom,  endure  much 
from  their  enemies  on  earth,  but  are  raised  to  divine 
heights  after  death  and  attain  eternal  life.  It  was  a  view 
closely  akin  to  the  belief,  among  non-Jewish  peoples,  in 
a  suffering,  dying,  and  rising  saviour-god,  celebrated  in 
secret  cults  and  represented  by  various  sects.  It  is 
natural  to  suspect  that  the  idea  of  the  Messiah's  mission 
derived  from  Isaiah  was  a  secret  doctrine  among  the 
Jews,  and  had  its  chief  representatives  in  peculiarly 
mystic  circles  or  sects  apart  from  the  official  Jewish 
religion. 

Possibly  the  Nazoraeans  or  Nazaraeans,  as  Epiphanius 
calls  the  first  Christians,  were  such  a  sect,  as  he  observes 
that  they  existed  before  Christ,  and  knew  nothing  of 
Christ — that  is  to  say,  of  an  historical  man  of  that  name 
(Hceres,  xviii,  29).  It  is  true  that  he  only  affirms  this  of 
the  Nasaraeans,  a  Jewish  sect  that  lived  east  of  the 
Jordan,  practised  circumcision,  observed  the  Sabbath  and 
the  Jewish  festivals,  but  rejected  animal  food  and  sacri- 
fices, and  regarded  the  Pentateuch  as  a  forgery,1  and 
takes  the  greatest  care  to  distinguish  between  the  two 
sects,  the  Nazoraeans  and  the  Nasarseans.  But  it  is  not 
easy  to  believe  that  they  were  really  distinct,  and  the 
confusion  of  his  text  at  the  relevant  passage  is  due,  Smith 
suspects  (The  Pre-Christian  Jesus),  merely  to  his  attempt 
to  obscure  the  real  situation. 

According  to  Epiphanius,  the  Nazoraeans  were  closely 
related  to  the  Jessaeans ;  indeed,  the  name  is  said  to  have 

1  According  to  Nilus,  a  younger  contemporary  of  Epiphanius  (x,  430), 
they  were  not  Christians  (in  the  current  sense),  but  a  sort  of  Rechabites, 
living  in  tents,  avoiding  wine  and  other  luxuries,  and  living  an  extremely 
simple  life.  This  would  agree  with  our  idea  of  a  coalescence  of  the 
Nazaraeans  and  Nasiraeans. 


218  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

been  originally  a  name  of  the  Nazoraeans.  Epiphanius 
leaves  it  open  whether  they  took  their  name  from  Jesus 
or  from  Jesse  (Isai),  father  of  David  and  ancestor  of  the 
Messiah.  Either  is  possible,  since  the  Hebrew  name 
Joshua  can  be  rendered  either  Jesus  or  Jessus  in  Greek, 
as  is  seen  in  the  relation  of  Maschiach  and  Messiah. 
Possibly,  however,  we  have  in  their  name  (Jessaeans  = 
Jesaiaeans  [Jessaioi])  an  echo  of  the  name  of  the  prophet 
to  whom  they  owed  their  particular  conception  of  the 
suffering  Messiah.  The  name  Isaiah  is,  moreover,  closely 
connected  with  the  name  Jesus,  Jehoschua,  or  Joshua,  and 
means  "  Jahveh  salvation."  "  God-salvation  "  would,  of 
course,  be  just  as  fitting  a  name  for  the  "  saviour-god  "  as 
"God-Help." 

Further,  the  Jessaeans  or  Jessenes  must  have  been 
closely  connected  with  the  Essaeans  or  Essenians  who, 
like  the  Therapeuts  of  Egypt,  cultivated  a  mystic  esoteric 
doctrine,  and  cured  disease  and  expelled  devils  by  the 
magic  of  names.  The  "  servant  of  God  "  in  Isaiah  was 
also  a  physician  of  the  soul,  a  healer,  and  an  expeller  of 
demons.  When,  therefore,  Epiphanius  observes  that  the 
name  Jesus  means  in  Hebrew  curator  or  therapeutes 
(healer  or  physician),  it  is  not  at  all  improbable  that  the 
Essaeans  worshipped  their  god  under  the  name  Jesus  or 
Joshua. 

In  the  gospels  (Mark  ix,  39;  Luke  ix,  49;  x,  17),  in 
Acts  (iii,  16),  and  in  the  Epistle  of  James  (v,  14),  we  read 
that  the  name  Jesus  had  a  miraculous  power,  and  the 
Talmud  also  says  that  about  the  end  of  the  first  century 
disease  was  healed  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  According  to 
Weiss,  this  is  "  one  of  the  strongest  proofs  that  he  was 
known  to  Jews  and  Gentiles  as  a  successful  exorcist  " 
(p.  19)  ;  and  Weinel  charges  Smith  with  "  a  poor  know- 
ledge of  the  subject,"  because  he  concludes  from  this  that 
the  name  Jesus  must  from  the  first  have  been  the  name 
of  a  god.  "  For,"  he  sagely  informs  us,  "  devils  were 
expelled  in  the  name  of  Solomon,  for  instance,  as  well  as 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  219 

in  the  name  of  God  or  of  a  god.1  In  this  way  they 
secured  the  mysterious  power  which,  according  to  the 
ideas  of  the  age,  Solomon  or  Jesus  possessed — the  latter 
in  virtue  of  the  cures  which  he  had  actually  accom- 
plished "  (p.  94).  Indeed  !  Unfortunately,  in  the  passage 
quoted  from  Josephus  it  is  not  said  at  all  that  the  Jewish 
magician  Eleazar  exorcised  demons  "  in  the  name  of 
Solomon,"  but  merely  that  he  exorcised  them  and  at  the 
same  time  "remembered"  the  name  of  Solomon  and 
pronounced  the  magical  formulae  composed  by  him. 
From  this  it  does  not  follow  at  all  that  it  was  the 
name  of  Solomon,  and  not  the  name  of  some  divine 
being,  that  worked  the  miracles.  Is  Solomon  supposed 
to  have  expelled  demons  in  his  own  name  ?  That  would 
be  too  much  like  Zeus  in  Offenbach's  operetta  Orpheus  in 
the  Underworld,  who  swears  "by  me"!  That  was  not 
even  done  by  Jesus,  who  drove  out  devils  in  the  name  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  (Matthew  xii,  28).  We  read  in  Justin, 
moreover,  that  the  Joshua  of  the  Old  Testament  was  only 
made  capable  of  performing  miracles  when  Moses  changed 
his  name  from  Hosea  into  that  of  the  Christian  saviour 
(Numbers  xiii,  16)  .2  Hence,  miracles  were  not  done  in 
the  name  of  Jesus  because  the  historical  Jesus  had  been 
"a  successful  exorcist,"  but  the  name  itself  was  supposed 
to  have  the  power  of  expelling  demons  and  compelling 
nature,  quite  independently,  it  seems,  of  the  miracles  of 
the  "historical"  Jesus. 

In  this  connection  there  seems  to  be  more  probability 
in  the  suggestion  of  Smith  that  the  words  of  the  magic- 
papyrus  published  by  Wessely,  "  I  adjure  thee  by  the 
God  of  the  Hebrews,  Jesus,"  points  to  a  pre-Christian 
use  of  the  name  Jesus  in  exorcisms.  Weiss,  it  is  true, 
says  that  the  papyrus  was  "certainly"  written  by  a 
pagan  "  who  was  unable  to  distinguish  between  Jews  and 
Christians"  (p.  19).  Deissman  also  believes  that  the 

1  Josephus,  Antiq.,  viii,  2,  57.  2  See  Justin,  113,  4. 


220 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


name  was  subsequently  interpolated  by  a  pagan,  since 
neither  a  Christian  nor  a  Jew  would  call  Jesus  the  God 
of  the  Hebrews.  But  what  if  Jesus  was  originally  the 
name  of  a  god  ?  What  if  there  were  a  pre-Christian 
Judseo-Gnostic  Jesus-god  ?  Is  it  possible  that  Deissman 
has  himself  fallen  here  into  the  error  of  the  "  destroyers 
of  names  "  whom  he  so  much  despises — those  who  think 
"  nothing  genuine  that  is  not  trivial,"  and  who  strike  out 
"  a  great  name "  wherever  they  find  it  ?  The  copyist 
has  added  "  the  cathari"  (i.e.,  "  the  pure  ")  to  the  words 
quoted.  No  less  a  scholar  than  Albrecht  Dieterich  has 
declared  that  the  "  pure  "  are  identical  with  the  Essenes 
or  Therapeuts,  and  pointed  out  that  the  papyrus  betrays 
no  Christian  influence  whatever,  but  belongs  to  Judaeo- 
Hellenistic  circles,1  and,  if  this  is  so,  the  Essenes  must 
have  recognised  a  Jesus-god.  What  does  Weinel,  who 
thinks  it  "  childish  "  to  identify  "  the  pure "  with  the 
Essenes,  say  to  this  ?  He  says  flatly :  "  Everybody 
knows  that  we  have  Christian  influence  here ;  that  it  is 
the  Christian  Jesus  who  is  meant,  and  he  is  mistakenly 
represented  as  a  God  of  the  Hebrews"  (p.  103).  The 
truth  is  that  theologians  have  hitherto  thought  they  had 
proved  this,  because  they  did  not  consider  any  alternative 
to  their  own  view. 

Then  there  is  the  Naassene  hymn,  which  Hippolytus 
has  preserved  for  us,  in  which  the  name  Jesus  occurs. 
He  "  prays  his  father "  to  send  him  down  to  bring 
redemption  to  those  who  walk  in  darkness.  "  In  posses- 
sion of  the  seal  will  I  go  down  :  all  aeons  will  I  traverse : 
all  mysteries  will  I  solve,  the  forms  of  the  gods  will 
I  reveal,  and  what  is  hidden  of  the  holy  way  [gnosis] 
will  I  make  plain."  Theologians  say,  in  opposition  to 
Smith,  that  this  hymn  is  post-Christian.  But  as  there 
were  Naassenes  or  Ophites  before  the  appearance  of 
Christianity,  as  Mosheim  (Geschichte  der  Schlangen- 


1  Abraxas,  1891,  p.  143  ;  see  also  his  Mithrasliturgie,  1903,  pp.  27  and  44. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  221 

bruder)  and  Baur  (Die  christliche  Gnosis,  1835,  pp.  37, 
52,  and  194)  supposed,  and  Honig  has  completely  proved 
(Die  Ophiten,  1889),  it  is  merely  begging  the  question  to 
say  that  in  the  case  of  this  psalm  we  have  "  Christian 
Naassenes,"  especially  seeing  that  the  psalm  itself  has  a 
very  ancient  character  and  is  closely  related  to  the 
corresponding  Babylonian  forms  of  adjuration.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  difficult  to  resist  the  suspicion  that  the 
ancient  Babylonian  name-magic  was  combined  at  an 
early  date  with  the  idea  of  a  divine  healer,  and  Jesus 
(Joshua,  Jason,  Jasios)  was  a  name  used  in  exorcisms  by 
the  pre-Christian  Gnostic  sects.  Further,  the  name 
must  indicate  some  sort  of  divine  being,  as  few  will 
doubt  who  have  any  acquaintance  with  the  old  ideas  of 
adjuration  and  magic. 

Whittaker  (The  Origins  of  Christianity,  2nd  ed.,  1909, 
p.  27)  has  drawn  attention  to  Jude  5,  where  it  is  written : 
"  I  will  therefore  put  you  in  remembrance,  though  ye 
once  knew  this,  how  that  the  Lord,  having  saved  the 
people  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  afterwards1  destroyed 
them  that  believed  not ;  and  the  angels  which  kept  not 
their  first  estate,  but  left  their  own  habitation,  he  hath 
reserved  in  everlasting  chains  under  darkness  unto  the 
judgment  of  the  great  day."  So  it  reads  in  the  revised 
text.  But  in  the  original  text,  as  we  have  it  in  Butt- 
mann's  Greek  edition  of  the  New  Testament,  we  read 
the  name  Jesus  instead  of  "  the  Lord,"  and  this,  as  we 
saw,  is  equivalent  to  Joshua.  If  we  then  remove  the 
comma  after  "  Egypt,"  where  it  is  quite  arbitrary  and 
has  no  meaning,  and  put  it  after  "  a  second  time,"  we 
read :  "  that  Jesus,  having  saved  the  people  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt  a  second  time,"  and  we  have  a  strong 
proof  that  there  was  a  pre-Christian  saviour  of  that  name 
known  in  the  Judaeo-Christian  circles  to  which  the 
Epistle  is  addressed.  Not  only  does  it  confirm  the  belief 

1  [Not  "afterwards,"  but  "a  second  time,"  in  the  Greek  text. — J.M.] 


222  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

in  a  god  Jesus  in  these  circles,  as,  of  course,  only  a  god 
could  judge  the  angels  and  put  them  in  chains  ;  it  at  the 
same  time  shows  us  the  identity  of  this  Jesus  with  the 
Joshua  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  strengthens  our  con- 
viction that  Joshua  also,  who  saved  the  Israelites  from 
the  bondage  of  Egypt  a  second  time,  Moses  having  saved 
them  once  before,  was  regarded  in  those  circles  as  a 
divine  being  and  not  as  a  mere  hero.  That  "  Jesus  "  is 
really  the  earlier  reading  is  shown  by  the  fourth  verse, 
where  Jesus  is  described  as  the  "  only  Lord "  of  the 
Christians,  so  that  it  is  impossible  that  in  the  very  next 
verse  the  writer  should  call  another — say,  Jahveh — the 
Lord,  especially  as  Jesus  Christ  is  also  expressly  called 
the  "  Lord  "  in  verses  17,  21,  and  25.  Hence  we  have 
in  the  Epistle  of  Jude  and  the  changes  of  its  original 
text  a  positive  proof  of  an  attempt  to  conceal  the  traces 
of  a  pre-Christian  Jesus-god. 

With  this  passage  in  the  Epistle  of  Jude  Whittaker 
compares  one  in  the  "  Sibylline  Oracles,"  an  essentially 
Jewish  work,  in  which  we  read:  "Now  a  certain 
excellent  man  will  come  again  from  heaven,  who  spread 
forth  his  hands  upon  the  very  fruitful  tree,  the  best  of 
the  Hebrews,  who  once  made  the  sun  stand  still,  speak- 
ing with  beauteous  words  and  pure  lips."  The  German 
translation  runs :  "  Whose  hands  outspread  on  the 
fruitful  tree  of  the  best  of  the  Hebrews,"  and  relates  the 
"  one  "  to  Moses  and  the  cross  to  Exodus  xvii,  22.  But 
Moses  does  not  stretch  his  hands  on  the  cross,  but  in  the 
form  of  a  cross ;  and  it  was  not  Joshua  who  made  the 
sun  stand  still,  but  Aaron  and  Hur  who  supported  his 
arms,  Joshua  in  the  meantime  being  engaged  with  the 
Amalekites.  Here  again  the  figures  of  Jesus  and  Joshua 
are  blended,  and  we  learn  from  the  passage  that  they 
identified  the  Old  Testament  Joshua,  not  only  with  the 
"  crucified  "  servant  of  God,  but  also  with  the  Messiah 
descending  from  heaven. 

A  further  proof  that  Jesus  was  the  name  of  a  god  in 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  223 

pre-Christian  times  is  found  in  the  "  Teaching  of  the 
Twelve  Apostles,"  according  to  Harnack  and  others  an 
originally  Jewish  work,  which  was  afterwards,  somewhat 
superficially,  Christianised.  It  says,  in  connection  with 
the  Last  Supper:  "We  thank  thee,  our  father,  for  the 
holy  vine  of  David,  thy  servant,  whom  thou  hast  made 

known  to  us  by  thy  servant  Jesus We  thank  thee  for 

the   life   and   the   knowledge   that   thou   hast  given    us 

through  Jesus,  thy  servant We  thank  thee  for  thy 

holy  name,  for  which  thou  hast  prepared  a  dwelling  in 
our  hearts,  and  for  the  knowledge  and  the  faith  and  the 
immortality  that  thou  hast  made  known  to  us  through 
thy  servant  Jesus."  How  is  it  that  the  words  of  institution 
of  the  Last  Supper  in  the  gospels,  which  must  have  been 
so  important  and  dear  to  Christians,  are  omitted  and 
replaced  by  the  above  words?  Is  this  Jesus  of  the 
"  Teaching,"  who  is  supposed  to  have  made  known  to 
his  followers  the  "  holy  vine  of  David,"  the  same  as  the 
Jesus  of  the  gospels?  This  Jesus  who  reveals  life  and 
knowledge,  and  in  this  way  communicates  immortality 
to  his  followers,  has  a  suspicious  resemblance  to  the 
Jesus  of  the  ancient  Gnostics,  in  whose  case  also  the 
knowledge  (gnosis)  revealed  by  him  was  the  essential 
mark  and  condition  of  eternal  life. 

Then  there  is  the  so-called  "  Kevelation  "  of  John  ! 
Here,  again,  apparently,  we  have  an  originally  Jewish 
work  which  was  afterwards  modified  in  a  Christian  sense, 
and  no  one  can  say  confidently  whether  the  nucleus  of 
the  revelation  was  composed  before  or  after  the  supposed 
time  of  Jesus.  There  is  the  terrible  form  of  the  "  son  of 
man  "  coming  in  the  clouds,  who  says :  "I  am  the  Alpha 
and  the  Omega,"  just  as  Jahveh  says  of  himself  in  Isaiah  : 
"I  am  the  first  and  the  last"  (xlviii,  13).  "His  head 
and  his  hairs  were  white  like  wool,  as  white  as  snow ; 
and  his  eyes  were  as  a  flame  of  fire  ;  and  his  feet  like 
unto  fine  brass,  as  if  they  burned  in  a  furnace ;  and  his 
voice  as  the  sound  of  many  waters.  And  he  had  in  his 


224 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


right  hand  seven  stars ;  and  out  of  his  mouth  went  a 
sharp  two-edged  sword  ;  and  his  countenance  was  as  the 
sun  shineth  in  his  strength  "  (Rev.  i,  14-16).  Then  there 
is  the  lamb  with  seven  horns  and  seven  eyes,  that  is  "  as 
if  slain,"  and  the  mysterious  book  opened  with  the  seven 
seals  (v,  5),  and  the  child  of  the  woman  "  clothed  with  the 
sun,  and  the  moon  under  her  feet,  and  upon  her  head  a 
crown  of  twelve  stars,"  who  is  carried  to  the  throne  of 
God,  and  of  whom  it  is  said  that  he  will  "  rule  all  nations 
with  a  rod  of  iron  "  (xii).  Or  consider  the  rider  on  the 
white  horse,  with  many  diadems  on  his  head,  clothed  in 
a  blood-stained  garment,  whose  name  is  "  the  word  of 

God and  he  treadeth  the  winepress  of  the  fierceness 

and  wrath  of  Almighty  God ;  and  he  hath  on  his  vesture 
and  on  his  thigh  a  name  written,  King  of  Kings  and  Lord 
of  Lords"  (xix,  11).  What  have  all  these  forms  to  do 
with  the  "  simple  "  Jesus  of  the  gospels  ?  How  could  we 
explain  the  transformation  of  such  a  Jesus  into  these 
extraordinary  mixtures  of  the  grotesque  and  gigantic  so 
soon  after  his  death  ?  Have  we  not  rather  a  product  of 
the  unrestrained  imagination  of  some  religious  sect  or 
conventicle,  to  whom  Jesus  was  from  the  start,  not  a 
man,  but  a  supernatural,  divine  being,  and  in  whose 
ecstatic  visions  mythical  and  prophetic  elements  grew 
into  the  frenzied  figures  which  we  have  in  Revelation  ? 

In  details  we  perceive  a  connection  with  the  prophet 
Isaiah — in  the  form  of  the  child  and  the  lamb  which  is 
slain,  in  the  allusion  to  the  "  root,  the  offspring  of  David, 
and  the  bright  and  morning  star  "  (xxii,  16  ;  Isaiah  Ix),  in 
the  figure  of  the  rider  who  treads  the  winepress  of  the 
anger  of  judgment  (Isaiah  Ixiii),  in  the  reference  to  the 
sufferings  of  the  saints,  which  by  no  means  relates  to  the 
persecutions  of  the  Christians,  as  has  hitherto  been 
believed,  but  rather  to  the  sufferings  of  the  just  in 
Wisdom,  in  the  comforting  with  the  "  fountain  of  life  " 
and  the  eternal  light  of  the  lamb,  in  which  the  nations 
walk  and  to  which  the  kings  of  the  earth  bring  their 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  225 

glory  (Isaiah  Ix),  in  the  promise  of  the  new  Jerusalem, 
in  which  the  treasures  of  the  nations  will  be  heaped  up 
and  only  the  just  shall  live,  in  the  struggle  of  Jahveh 
with  the  Leviathan,  and  the  figure  of  the  last  trumpet 
(Isaiah  xxvii).  The  historical  Jesus,  who  is  supposed  to 
have  been  the  occasion  of  all  this,  is  nowhere  to  be 
recognised,  and  could  not  be  found  at  all  in  Revelation, 
if  it  were  not  read  under  the  conviction  that  it  belongs  to 
Christian  circles,  and  that  the  Jesus  of  whom  it  speaks  is 
the  one  whose  supposed  life-story  is  told  in  the  gospels. 
It  may  be  an  esoteric  work  of  the  "  Jessaeans,"  in  the 
sense  of  the  word  previously  explained.  There  is  no 
proof  that  it  is  a  Christian  work  and  relates  to  the 
"  historical  "  Jesus.  The  numerous  astral-mythological 
allusions  in  the  work  which  were  indicated  by  Dupuis 
point,  not  to  an  historical,  but  a  purely  mythical  Jesus. 

If,  therefore,  Jesus  had  a  mythic  significance  in  pre- 
Christian  times,  it  would  be  very  surprising  if  he  were 
not  also  worshipped  in  certain  sects,  especially  in  view  of 
the  part  played  by  the  similarly-named  Jasios  or  Jason  as 
healer  and  patron  of  physicians  in  the  Greek  mysteries. 
It  is  certain  that  Moses  was  regarded  as  divine,  not  only 
in  the  Alexandrian  religious  philosophy  of  Philo,  which  is 
closely  connected  with  the  Palestinian  sects,  but  also  in 
the  belief  of  the  sects  themselves.  Just  as  Philo  sees  in 
him  the  lawgiver  and  prophet,  the  "  purest  spirit,"  the 
ideal  type  of  humanity,  the  mediator  and  reconciler  with 
God,  even  a  divine  being,  and  makes  him  equal  to  the 
Messiah,  so,  on  his  own  showing,  this  happened  in  many 
of  the  Judaeo-Gnostic  sects,  who  looked  up  to  Moses  as  a 
kind  of  god,  had  a  legend  of  his  being  taken  into  heaven, 
and  on  this  account  venerated  him  as  the  conqueror  of 
death  and  the  demons.  Philo  says  that  the  Therapeuts 
held  a  great  festival  on  the  seventh  Sabbath,  the  fiftieth 
day  of  the  year  at  that  time,  in  which,  after  a  festive 
nocturnal  meal,  which  probably  had  a  mystic  significance, 
the  men  and  women  were  arranged  in  a  double  choir, 

Q 


226  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

which  Philo  calls  an  imitation  of  the  choir  which  Moses 
and  his  sister  Miriam  arranged  to  sing  their  victory  and 
gratitude  after  the  passage  of  the  Eed  Sea.  In  Philo  and 
the  Therapeuts  the  delivery  of  the  Jews  from  the  bondage 
of  Egypt  means  the  delivery  of  the  soul  from  the  bonds  of 
sense  and  the  passage  to  the  kingdom  of  the  pure  spirit. 
But  as  the  meal  of  the  Therapeuts  was  certainly  related 
to  the  Passover  meal,  which  the  Jews  celebrated  before 
the  escape  from  Egypt,  it  had  an  historical  as  well  as  a 
mystic  significance,  Hke  the  Christian  Supper.  "  The  soul 
prepares  in  the  Passover  or  in  its  imitation  the  Therapeutic 
meals  for  delivery  from  the  bonds  of  sense ;  it  then  asks 
divine  aid  in  the  passage  through  the  Bed  Sea  which 
borders  Egypt  (or  the  body),  and  rejoices  in  the  sacred 
choirs,  inebriated  with  heavenly  love  and  full  of  gratitude 
to  the  saving  God,  the  redeemer." 

Now  Joshua  is  a  close  relation,  if  not  a  mere  duplicate, 
of  Moses.  In  his  case  the  passage  of  the  Bed  Sea  is 
paralleled  by  the  passage  of  the  Jordan,  the  river  of 
heaven,  as  the  Mandseans  regarded  it;2  and  in  his  case 
also  the  passage  is  connected  with  the  feast  of  the 
Passover  (Joshua  v) .  The  story  of  Joshua  is  built,  point 
by  point,  on  that  of  Moses;3  indeed,  it  seems  as  if  they 
are  only  two  different  forms  of  the  same  mythical  figure, 
the  lawgiver  and  leader  of  Israel — that  is  to  say,  the  sun 
in  its  passage  through  the  watery  region  in  the  spring,  in 
combination  with  Cannes  as  determining  and  announcing 
the  division  of  the  year  (see  p.  190).  After  this,  is  it  a 
strained  and  precarious  supposition  that  Joshua  also  was 
originally  an  Ephraimitic  name  for  the  sun,  an  ancient 
Jewish  sect-god,  a  hero  of  the  cult  in  certain  Gnostic 
circles,  who  were  in  this  influenced  by  their  heathen 
pastoral  neighbours  and  their  veneration  of  similar 


1  Gfrorer,  Philo  und  die  jildisch-alex.  Theosophie,  1835,  ii,  p.  295. 

2  Brandt,  Die  mand&ische  Religion,  1889. 

8  Jeremias,  Das  alte  Testament  im  Lichte  des  alien  Orients,  2  Aufl., 
1906,  p.  465. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  227 

mythic  personalities?  If  Melchisedech,  who  is,  like 
Moses,  put  by  Philo  on  the  same  footing  as  the  divine 
"  word,"  the  Logos  and  Messiah — if  Noah,  Henoch, 
Joseph,  and  even  Cain  were  worshipped,  is  it  likely  that 
Joshua,  the  second  Moses,  was  overlooked  ? 

We  now  know  that  there  was  a  pre-Christian  Jewish 
Gnosticism.  In  his  admirable  work,  Der  vorchristliche 
jiidische  Gnostizismus  (1898),  Friedlander  has  amply 
described  it  and  its  connection  with  the  religious  philo- 
sophy of  Alexandria ; 1  Gunkel  has  traced  its  relations  to 
Persian  and  Babylonian  ideas.2  Must  we  reject  outright 
the  idea  of  a  pre-Christian  cult  of  Jesus  because  we  have 
no  direct  evidence  of  it?  We  can,  however,  deduce  its 
existence  from  the  few  extant  traces  on  the  same  rules  of 
science  on  which  we  deduce  any  other  facts  from  indica- 
tions and  survivals  in  historical  investigation  when  there 
is  no  direct  evidence.  It  is  true  that  we  can  only  attain 
more  or  less  confident  suppositions,  especially  as  there  is 
question  of  a  secret  cult,  the  teaching  of  which  was 
probably  not  committed  to  writing  (Gunkel,  p.  63),  and 
because  the  Christian  Church  and  Jewish  synagogue  have 
done  all  in  their  power  to  destroy  heretical  works  and  all 
traces  of  the  real  origin  of  Christianity. 

We  have  ample  experience  of  the  conduct  of  the  Koman 
Church  in  suppressing  inconvenient  writings.  How  was 
it  likely  to  act  when  it  had  better  means  of  doing  so  than 
now,  when  it  still  had  unlimited  power  over  souls,  and 
when  the  difficulty  of  publishing  works  was  such  as  to 
restrict  their  number  in  a  way  that  we  can  now  hardly 
appreciate ;  especially  as  there  would,  in  any  case,  be  few 
copies  of  these  esoteric  Gnostic  works?  All  that  we 
know  of  Gnosticism  is  derived  from  the  biassed  accounts 
of  its  ecclesiastical  opponents,  as  the  Church  moved 
heaven  and  earth  to  destroy  the  works  of  its  supporters. 
We  can  no  more  forget  the  treasures  we  have  lost  in  this 

1  Also  see  Harnack,  Oesch.  der  altchristl.  Literatur,  i,  p.  144. 

2  Zum  religionsgesch.  Verstandniss,  etc. 


228  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

way  than  we  can  forget  its  brutal  destruction  of  our 
earliest  literature  (songs  of  the  gods,  legends  of  heroes, 
magical  formulae,  etc.)  in  the  first  years  of  the  Christian 
mission  in  Germany  and  during  the  Middle  Ages;  in 
those  years  we  lost  an  invaluable  treasure,  torn  by  the 
hands  of  fanatical  priests,  trampled  under  the  heavy  feet 
of  monks,  and  given  to  the  flames. 

And  even  if  we  reject  the  idea  of  a  pre-Christian  cult 
of  Jesus,  those  who  believe  in  his  historical  character  gain 
nothing.  It  is  not  true  at  all  that,  as  is  constantly  said 
in  pamphlets,  lectures,  and  journals,  The  Christ-Myth 
stands  or  falls  with  the  existence  of  a  pre-Christian  Jesus. 
The  mythical  nature  of  the  Christian  saviour  is  sufficiently 
proved  by  the  character  of  the  gospels  themselves  and 
the  lack  of  independent  evidence ;  it  is  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  the  question  whether  Jesus  had  or  had  not 
been  previously  worshipped.  The  belief  in  an  earlier 
cult  would  merely  throw  a  welcome  light  on  the  origin 
of  Christianity  and  its  connection  with  the  surrounding 
Jewish  and  pagan  world.  One  may  venture  to  say  that 
theologians  have  found  so  much  in  their  documents,  when 
it  suited  their  purpose,  that  they  will  certainly  be  able  to 
discover  a  pre-Christian  Jesus  whenever  their  theory 
requires  one,  and  they  are  no  longer  prevented  by  their 
dependence  on  the  Church  from  studying  the  subject 
impartially. 

(h)  The  Conversion  of  the  Mythical  into  an  Historical 
Jesus. — We  must  now  make  a  special  inquiry  into  the 
question  how  the  mythical  Jesus — the  Isaiahian  (or 
Jessaean)  saviour,  the  suffering,  dying,  and  rising  servant 
of  God  and  just  one — was  converted  into  the  historical 
Jesus,  and  see  how  far  prophetic  promises  and  astral- 
mythological  speculations  of  the  Gnostic  sects  co-operated 
in  the  process,  and  how  far  personal  experiences  and 
religious  dispositions  of  the  communities  determined  the 
figure  of  the  historical  Jesus  and  transformed  an  abstract 
scheme  into  a  living  personality.  The  Christ-Myth  has 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  229 

been  content  with  a  few  general  indications  in  this  regard. 
It  has  merely  gathered  together  material  from  which 
one  may  obtain  some  idea  of  the  origin  of  Christianity. 
Perhaps  the  time  has  not  yet  come  for  a  fuller  study  of 
the  matter,  as  one  has  first  to  accomplish  the  work  of 
clearing  a  veritable  Augean  stable  of  prejudices  and  errors 
and  preparing  the  ground  for  a  sober  construction.  It 
is  clear  that  the  conversion  of  the  mythical  into  the 
historical  Jesus  could  not  have  taken  place  before  the 
beginning  of  the  second  century,  when  there  would  be 
no  living  witnesses  of  the  events  related.  The  seventy 
or  eighty  years  that  would  elapse  after  the  supposed 
death  of  Jesus  would  be  quite  enough  to  permit  his 
"  history  "  to  seem  plausible,  especially  as  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem  had  so  disturbed  the  life  of  the  people  that 
there  was  no  fear  of  Jewish  opponents  proving  the  false- 
ness of  their  assertions.  At  the  same  time,  we  need  not 
postulate  a  deliberate  deception  in  the  conversion  of  the 
myth  into  history.  As  all  the  chief  features  of  the 
character  of  Jesus  had,  as  we  saw,  long  been  in  existence, 
and  the  myth  would  naturally  tend  to  take  the  form  of 
narrative,  as  if  there  were  question  of  real  events  in  the 
past,  the  whole  process  might  take  place  so  gradually  and 
unconsciously  that  there  is  no  occasion  to  speak  of  "  glib 
lying  "  and  "  thorough  swindle,"  as  some  say. 

The  cult-legend  spoke  of  an  Immanuel  or  Jesus  who 
had,  according  to  Isaiah,  sacrificed  himself  for  the  sins  of 
the  people,  and  would  then  come  down  from  heaven  in 
the  shape  of  the  expected  Messiah  and  lead  his  followers 
into  the  kingdom  they  desired.  As  the  question  of  the 
Messiah  had  become  urgent  after  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  and  the  collapse  of  all  the  political  hopes  of 
the  Jews,  and  amid  the  sufferings  of  the  people  from  the 
Roman  oppression,  the  further  questions  were  found  to 
rise  spontaneously  to  the  lips :  When  did  the  servant  of 
God  really  suffer  ?  Where  did  he  die  ?  What  was  he 
like  ?  What  did  he  do  before  he  was  put  to  death  by  his 


230  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

enemies  ?  Who  were  these  enemies  ?  And  so  on.  And 
it  was  just  as  inevitable  for  the  answer  to  be  found  in  the 
indications  of  the  prophets  and  of  astral-mythological 
speculation,  and  thus  to  lead  to  the  historicisation  of  the 
originally  mythical  figure  of  Jesus. 

His  death  could  not  be  placed  too  long  before  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  for  the  reasons  we  have  already 
seen.  The  Messiah  must  have  been  born  in  the  days  of 
Augustus,  whom  the  pagans  have  regarded  as  the  desired 
saviour  of  the  world.  Astral  mythology  furnished  the 
name  of  Pilatus  to  pierce  with  his  spear  (pilum)  the  son 
of  God  hanging  on  the  world-tree,  the  Milky  Way ;  and 
Pilate  had,  according  to  Josephus,  been  procurator  in  the 
time  of  Tiberius.  According  to  the  words  of  the  prophet, 
the  servant  of  God  was  to  be  a  healer  of  spiritual  and 
corporal  ills,  a  supporter  of  the  poor  and  oppressed. 
Miracles  of  extraordinary  kinds  were  to  reveal  his  future 
Messianic  significance,  yet  he  was  not  to  be  understood 
by  his  own  people  and  was  to  succumb  to  the  attacks  of 
his  enemies.  And  who  could  these  enemies  be  but  the 
Pharisees  and  scribes,  who  had  been  more  and  more 
hostile  to  the  Jewish  sects  after  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  ?  * 

As  long  as  their  belief  in  the  redeeming  death  of  the 
servant  of  God  was  a  secret  belief  within  the  sect  there 
could  be  no  conflict  with  the  Pharisees ;  in  fact,  some- 
times the  Pharisees  were  united  with  the  sectarians, 
both  in  their  mystic  and  astrological  tendencies  and  in 

1  Chowlson  says  that  it  was  the  Sadducees,  not  the  Pharisees,  who  were 
the  real  enemies  of  Jesus  and  brought  about  his  condemnation.  That  is 
historically  not  very  probable,  as  Steudel  has  shown  (Im  Kampf  um  die 
Christus-Mythe,  p.  45).  If  there  is  any  truth  in  it  at  all,  it  can  only  be 
that,  according  to  Wisdom,  which,  as  we  saw,  contributed  much  to  the 
picture  of  the  sufferings  of  the  just  one,  the  impious  enemies  of  the  just 
might  be  regarded  as  the  Sadducoes,  as  it  is  written  in  the  second  chapter 
(verse  22)  :  "They  knew  not  the  mysteries  of  God,  or  hoped  for  a  reward 
of  eternal  life,  and  would  hear  nothing  of  a  recompense  for  stainless  souls. 
For  God  has  created  man  for  immortality,  and  made  him  in  the  image  of 
his  own  likeness."  The  chief  difference  between  the  worldly-minded 
Sadducees  and  the  Pharisees  was  that  the  former  did  not  believe  in  immor- 
tality, or  the  eternal  reward  or  punishment  of  men  beyond  the  grave. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  231 

their  hostility  to  the  worldly-minded  priestly  nobility  of 
the  Sadducees.  We  saw  how  in  Isaiah  the  figure  of  the 
Saviour  constantly  blends  with  that  of  Jahveh.  As  is 
known,  the  aim  of  the  preaching  of  Isaiah  is  to  confirm 
the  people  in  monotheistic  ideas,  in  belief  in  the  one  God, 
who  says :  "  I  am  Jahveh  and  no  other,  and  there  is  no 
god  beside  me.  I  am  the  first  and  the  last."  These 
words  are  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  "  son  of  man "  in 
Revelation.  In  Isaiah  xlv,  15,  Jahveh  is  called  a  "  hidden 
God,"  a  "  Saviour,"  just  as  the  servant  of  God  and 
Saviour  was  supposed  to  grow  up  in  obscurity,  and  the 
just  to  expiate  sins  by  his  death  without  attracting  much 
attention  or  the  real  significance  of  his  death  being 
recognised.  What  if,  after  the  manner  of  Isaiah,  the 
belief  in  Jahveh  were  to  coalesce  with  the  belief  in  Jesus 
in  the  mind  of  the  sect,  and  Jesus  become  the  form  in 
which  Jahveh  was  worshipped  as  healer,  expiator,  and 
redeemer  in  the  mystic  and  esoteric  cults  ?  For  the 
religion  of  Jesus  was  merely  a  religion  of  Jahveh  of 
deeper  mysticism,  a  new  and  special  form  of  Jewish 
monotheism;  and  the  orthodox  Jews,  for  whom  mono- 
theism was  the  sum  of  their  faith,  had  on  that  account 
no  occasion  to  put  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  original 
Christians,  the  Jessaeans  or  Nazoraeans,  the  "  saints,"  as 
they  were  called  in  Isaiah.1 

Weiss  thinks  that  the  early  Christians,  with  their 
belief  that  the  crucified  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  put 
themselves  in  the  sharpest  opposition  to  Judaism,  and 
incurred  hatred  and  persecution,  and  says  that  it  is 
"  absolutely  ridiculous  to  think  that  the  first  Christians 
would  have  voluntarily  encountered  this  difficulty" 
(p.  44).  But  that  was  not  the  belief  of  the  "first 
Christians ";  they  believed  that  Jesus,  the  servant  of 
God,  the  Saviour  of  Isaiah,  who  was  believed  to  have 

1  This  is  suggested  by  Smith  in  his  Ecce  Deus,  who  tries  to  show  that 
the  original  Christian  movement  was  a  protest  against  polytheism,  a 
"  crusade  in  favour  of  monotheism." 


232  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

suffered  a  humiliating  death  among  men,  as  Messiah, 
would  return  in  glory,  and  realise  their  hope  of  eternal 
life.  It  may  seem  "  bold  "  and  "  paradoxical  "  to  imagine 
Jahveh  sacrificing  himself  for  his  people  and  so  entering 
the  ranks  of  the  pagan  saviour-gods — Marduk,  Adonis, 
Tammuz,  Attis,  Osiris,  etc.  Yet  this  may  have  been 
simply  a  revival  of  an  older  idea,  that  Jahveh  was  himself 
Tammuz,  dying  every  year,  mourned  by  the  women  of 
Jerusalem  according  to  Ezechiel  (viii,  13),  rising  and 
dying  again,  to  enter  once  more  into  life.1  A  reluctance 
to  connect  Jahveh  with  finiteness  may  have  prevented 
those  who  held  this  belief  from  identifying  the  Saviour 
strictly  with  the  supreme  God.  This  may  have  been  the 
reason  why  Jesus,  though  essentially  one  with  God,  was 
nevertheless  distinguished  from  him  as  a  special  being. 
It  was  a  "  stumbling-block  to  the  Jews  "  that  their  God 
was  related  to  the  pagan  saviour-gods ;  a  "  folly  to  the 
pagans"  that  the  redeemer  of  the  world  should  be  a 
Jewish  deity.  But  this  seems  impossible  only  when  one, 
like  Weiss,  conceives  the  crucified  Jesus  as  an  historical 
human  being.  That  the  Christians  would  arbitrarily 
create  the  difficulty  of  representing  such  a  person  as  the 
Messiah  we  should  certainly  hesitate  to  think.  But  the 
ground  for  believing  in  a  crucified  saviour  need  not  have 
been  in  historical  events  at  all ;  it  may  have  been  because 
the  fact  of  the  suffering  and  death  of  Jesus  was  revealed 
by  the  prophet  Isaiah. 

As  long  as  Jesus  was  the  object  of  worship  of  a  very 
small  body,  and  the  belief  in  him  was  obscured  by  mystic 
confusion  and  mythological  mists,  it  seemed  to  the 
orthodox  Jews  to  be  harmless.  The  figures  of  Jesus  and 
Jahveh  were  blended,  and  the  religious  foundation  of 
Judaism,  monotheism,  seemed  not  to  be  endangered. 
But  when,  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  the 
orthodox  Jews,  deprived  of  their  political  independence, 

1  See  H.  Schneider,  Kultur  und  Denken  der  Babulonier  und  Juden,  1910, 
p.  282. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  233 

now  placed  their  national  unity  and  cohesion  in  a  unity 
of  faith,  and  therefore  drew  up  the  ranks  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical regiment  more  strictly  and  hardened  the  ritual  law 
of  monotheism  into  a  dogma,  Jesus  was  detached  from 
Jahveh,  the  god  of  the  sect  was  opposed  to  the  god  of  the 
official  religion  as  an  independent  divine  being,  and  a 
bitter  hostility  set  in  between  the  scribes  and  Pharisees 
on  the  one  hand,  who  represented  monotheism  in  its 
most  abstract  form  and,  in  connection  with  it,  held 
rigidly  to  the  forms  of  the  law,  and  the  sects  on  the 
other  hand,  with  whom  the  common  folk  sympathised 
as  we  read  in  the  gospels.  Under  the  fearful  pressure 
of  the  uprooting  of  the  Jewish  people,  and  in  view  of 
the  religious  need  of  the  time,  which  had  reached  its 
highest  pitch  with  the  loss  of  the  temple,  it  seemed  that 
the  terrible  time  foretold  by  the  prophets  had  come,  and 
that  they  should  look  for  the  immediate  appearance  of 
the  Messiah.  The  promises  that  had  been  made  must 
now  be  fulfilled.  This  was  the  opportunity  of  the 
Jewish  sectaries  to  come  out  of  the  seclusion  of  their 
mystic  sects  and  conventicles  with  their  "  gnosis  "  and 
proclaim  to  the  whole  people  their  faith  in  Jesus. 

Possibly  exalted  by  visions,  in  which  they  believed 
that  they  saw  the  risen  "Lord"  in  bodily  form,  the 
emissaries  of  the  faith  went  about  announcing  the  "  glad 
tidings "  of  the  coming  of  the  Messiah  and  the  speedy 
establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth.  In 
market-place  and  on  the  street  the  appeal  for  change  of 
heart  through  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  rang  out. 
Then  the  innovation  became  dangerous  to  the  official 
Jewish  religion.  Weiss  can  only  attribute  to  a  "  real 
Jesus,"  the  "  influence  of  a  personality,"  and  the  expe- 
rience of  his  life  on  earth,  "  the  immense  step  from  the 
vague  Messianic  hope  to  the  confidence  of  possession, 
fulfilment,  and  the  joy  and  gratitude  for  what  God  has 
given  them  in  his  servant  Jesus,  as  we  find  it  in  the 
prayers  of  that  early  time"  (p.  48).  But  this  confidence 


234  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

of  possession  had  long  been  a  peculiarity  of  Jewish 
sectarianism  before  they  gave  publicity  to  their  faith  and 
made  it  the  object  of  a  popular  propaganda ;  Paul  and 
others  may  have  begun  this  at  an  earlier  period.  If  this 
is  now  done  more  vigorously  and  on  a  larger  scale,  it  is 
not  because  an  historical  Jesus  has  caused  it,  but  because 
the  general  conditions  of  the  time  inflamed  the  religious 
sentiment  and  made  it  seem  a  duty  to  the  sectaries  to 
communicate  their  "  knowledge  "  (gnosis)  to  their  com- 
patriots and  the  rest  of  mankind  and  "  reveal "  the 
approach  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  thus  bring  them 
to  a  change  of  heart.  It  is  true  that  the  rest  of  the  Jews 
also  believed  in  the  speedy  coming  of  the  Messiah.  But 
the  belief  had  so  often  been  falsified  that  its  strength  and 
sources  threatened  to  become  weaker.  The  sectaries, 
however,  had  a  powerful  framework  for  that  belief  in 
their  astrally  and  prophetically  grounded  legend  of  Jesus, 
who  was  supposed  voluntarily  to  have  sacrificed  himself 
and  to  be  about  to  return  as  king  and  judge  of  his  people. 
That  was  new  and  unfamiliar,  and  precisely  on  that 
account  it  appealed  to  the  feeling  of  the  time,  and  found 
credence  among  their  Jewish  compatriots  the  more  easily 
as  the  belief  gave  them  a  weapon  against  the  detested 
sanctity  and  pride  of  the  Pharisees,  and  the  concentration 
of  the  sectarians  on  the  plain  and  intelligible  morality  of 
the  prophets  and  proverbial  books  offered  the  possibility 
of  religious  salvation  to  all  men  who  would  endeavour 
to  lead  good  lives.  It  may  have  been  then  that  the 
saying  of  Luke  was  formulated :  "  Woe  unto  you, 
lawyers,  for  ye  have  taken  away  the  key  of  knowledge 
[gnosis].  Ye  entered  not  in  yourselves,  and  them  that 
were  entering  in  ye  hindered"  (xi,  52).  It  means  that 
the  representatives  of  the  official  Jewish  religion  had 
abandoned  their  earlier  predilection  for  astrology,  and 
now  attached  the  astrological  speculations  to  the  Gnostics. 
This  made  an  end  of  the  astral  ground  of  the  hope  in  a 
Messiah;  there  remained  only  the  prophetical,  and  the 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  235 

original  astral  Jesus  became  more  and  more  vague  and 
was  replaced  by  the  historical  Jesus.  The  more  the  new 
faith  spread  among  the  people  the  more  the  gnosis  was 
adapted  to  their  intelligence,  and  thus  the  supposed 
historicity  of  the  Saviour  was  substituted  for  the  mythical 
and  astral  character  of  their  religious  ideas.1 

(i)  Jesus  and  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes. — We  turn  now 
to  consider  the  relation  of  Jesus  to  the  Pharisees.  Jewish 
scholars  like  Chwolson2  have  often  expressed  their  aston- 
ishment at  the  way  this  relation  is  described  in  the 
gospels.  What,  they  ask,  could  be  the  reason  for  the 
deadly  enmity  between  Jesus  and  the  representatives  of 
the  official  Jewish  religion?  Religious-moral  reasons 
could  not  possibly  suffice  of  themselves  to  explain  it. 
In  this  respect  there  was  not  a  very  sharp  opposition 
between  them.  "In  the  teaching  and  sayings  of  Jesus," 
says  Chwolson,  "  there  was  nothing  that  could  offend  the 
religious  feeling  of  anyone  educated  according  to  Pharisaic 
laws  and  acquainted  with  the  Pharisaic — that  is  to  say, 
Eabbinical — literature"  (p.  88).  Jesus  is  supposed  to 
have  preached  in  the  synagogues,  of  which  the  Pharisees 
were  the  masters  ;  he  cannot,  therefore,  have  infringed 
the  law.  Moreover,  he  is  supposed  to  have  adhered 
strictly  to  the  law,  since  he  says  that  he  had  not  come 
to  undo,  but  to  fulfil,  it  (Matthew  v,  17) — a  saying  that  is 
found  almost  word  for  word  in  the  Talmud  :  "  Not  a  letter 
of  the  law  will  ever  be  destroyed,"  and  "  The  laws  of  Noah 
have  not  been  abolished,  but  increased"  (Cosri,  i,  S3}.8 
Matthew  xxiii,  3,  makes  Jesus  bid  his  disciples  listen  in 
all  things  to  the  commands  of  the  Pharisees.  This, 
however,  seems  to  be  based  on  Ecclus.  vii,  31  :  "  Fear  the 


1  In  every  heathen  religion  the  dying  and  risen  god  is  an  astral  being ; 
the  sun  descending  in  the  summer-solstice  or  in  the  autumn-equinox,  and 
ascending  in  the  winter-solstice  or  spring  equinox.      So  Dupuis,  in  his 
monumental  work  L'origine  de  tous  les  cultes  (1794),  has  shown  in  reference 
to  Tammuz,  Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris,  Mithra,  etc.     Cf.  also  Jeremias,  the 
work  above  mentioned. 

2  Das  Passahmahl,  p.  85.  3  SanJiedrim,  107  ;  Bereschit  rabba,  27. 


236  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

Lord,  and  honour  the  priest,  and  give  him  his  part,  as  it 
is  commanded  from  the  beginning."  In  passing  over  one 
or  other  prescription,  or  interpreting  it  in  an  unfamiliar 
sense,  he  did  nothing  extraordinary.  There  were  among  the 
Pharisees  and  scribes  themselves  many  differences  in  the 
exposition  and  application  of  the  prescriptions  of  the  law, 
though  this  never  led  to  charges  of  heresy  or  persecution. 

One  of  the  worst  of  his  transgressions  is  that  he  and 
his  disciples  are  said  to  have  violated  the  law  of  the 
Sabbath  by  healing  the  sick  on  that  day.  Even  among 
the  rabbis,  however,  the  holiness  of  the  Sabbath  had  to 
give  way  when  a  man's  life  was  in  question.  In  fact,  it 
was  obligatory  to  disregard  the  Sabbath  when  there  was 
danger  in  the  observance  of  it,  and  the  man  who  in  such 
a  case  held  to  the  letter  was  regarded  as  a  "  murderer." 
We  read  in  Lev.  xviii,  5  :  "  Ye  shall  therefore  keep  my 
statutes  and  my  judgments  ;  which,  if  a  man  do,  he  shall 
live  in  them."  And  in  the  Talmud  (Tract.  Joma,  S5b) 
we  read  :  "  The  Sabbath  is  given  to  you,  not  you  to  the 
Sabbath."  To  heal  by  merely  stretching  out  one's  hand 
over  the  patient,  as  Jesus  is  said  to  have  done  on  the 
Sabbath  in  Mark  iii,  5,  was  not  forbidden  by  the  rabbis, 
and  therefore  the  Pharisees  could  not  be  "  filled  with 
madness,"  as  they  are  said  to  have  been  on  such  an 
occasion  in  Luke  vi,  11. 

Even  on  the  question  of  divorce  Jesus  did  not  take  up 
a  position  opposed  to  that  of  the  Pharisees.  We  read  in 
Matthew  v,  31 :  "It  hath  been  said,  Whosoever  shall  put 
away  his  wife,  let  him  give  her  a  writing  of  divorcement ; 
but  I  say  unto  you,  That  whosoever  shall  put  away  his 
wife,  saving  for  the  cause  of  fornication,  causeth  her  to 
commit  adultery."  But  it  is  also  said  in  the  Talmud  : 
"  Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  over  him  the  altar 
sheddeth  tears "  (Pessachim,  113),  and  "  Whosoever 
putteth  away  his  wife  is  hated  of  God"  (Gittin,  906). 
Even  the  prophet  Malachi  had  said :  "  Let  none  deal 
treacherously  against  the  wife  of  his  youth,  for  the  Lord, 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  237 

the  God  of  Israel,  saith  that  he  hateth  putting  away  " 
(ii,  15).  Divorce  is  permitted  only  when  an  internal 
breach  between  the  spouses  has  already  taken  place 
because  of  the  infidelity  of  one  or  other,  as  is  said  in 
Isaiah  in  regard  to  the  union  of  Jahveh  and  his  people, 
which  is  conceived  as  a  marriage-bond :  "  Thus  saith  the 
Lord,  Where  is  the  bill  of  your  mother's  divorcement, 
whom  I  have  put  away  ?  or  which  of  my  creditors  is  it  to 
whom  I  have  sold  you  ?  Behold,  for  your  iniquities  have 
ye  sold  yourselves,  and  for  your  transgressions  is  your 
mother  put  away"  (1,  1).  In  the  passage  quoted  in 
regard  to  divorce,  Jesus  merely  pronounces  for  the  stricter 
opinion  of  the  school  of  Gamaliel  against  the  laxer  school 
of  Hillel. 

Not  only  is  there  no  opposition  between  Jesus  and  the 
Pharisees  on  this  point,  but  even  the  fact  that  he  is 
supposed  to  have  openly  proclaimed  himself  the  Messiah 
was  not  calculated  to  turn  them  against  him.  Not  only 
the  children  of  Israel,  but  even  individual  men,  are  called 
11  sons  of  God,"  and  the  priests  and  rabbis  themselves 
have  at  times  called  a  man  the  Messiah  and  supported 
him  with  their  respect ;  consider  Zerubbabel,  and  the 
relation  of  the  rabbi  Akiba  to  Bar-Kochba. 

In  Matthew  xv,  5,  and  Mark  vii,  11,  Jesus  reproaches 
the  Pharisees  with  perverting  the  command  to  honour 
one's  father  and  mother  in  favour  of  one's  duty  to  God. 
We  find,  however,  no  trace  of  such  a  thing  in  Jewish 
tradition,  which  expressly  forbids  any  misinterpretation  of 
the  commandments  of  the  law.  Again,  in  regard  to  the 
laws  regulating  food,  Jesus  cannot  possibly  have  acted  as 
he  is  supposed  to  have  done  in  Matthew  xv,  11,  and 
Mark  vii,  15,  because  in  that  case  it  would  be  unin- 
telligible for  Peter  to  refuse  to  touch  unclean  food 
(Acts  x,  14).  Moreover,  Jesus  is  supposed  to  have  given 
him  full  power  to  bind  and  to  loose,  or  to  decide  questions 
of  law  according  to  his  own  judgment. 

It  is  just  as  accurate  for  Jesus  to  blame  the  Pharisees 


238  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

for  making  proselytes  (Matthew  xxiii,  15).  If  we  were  to 
take  his  words  seriously,  they  were  wholly  absorbed  in 
bringing  men  into  the  Jewish  faith'  wherever  they  could. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Talmud  expressly  forbids  this  indis- 
criminate making  of  proselytes,  and  makes  the  entrance 
into  Judaism  dependent  on  righteousness  of  heart.  Still 
less  can  there  be  question  of  the  Pharisees  declaring  that 
to  swear  by  the  temple  and  altar  was  not  binding,  but  ifr 
is  binding  to  swear  by  the  gold  of  the  temple  and  the 
sacrifice  on  the  altar  (Matthew  xxiii,  16).  If  Jesus  meant 
that  the  sanctity  clung  to  the  temple  and  altar,  not  to  the 
things  therein,  that  is  precisely  the  view  of  the  rabbis.1 
And  when  Jesus  says  (Matthew  xxiii,  23) :  "  Woe  unto 
you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites !  for  ye  pay  tithe  of 
mint  and  anise  and  cummin,  and  have  omitted  the 
weightier  matters  of  the  law,  judgment,  mercy,  and 
faith :  these  ought  ye  to  have  done,  and  not  to  leave 
the  other  undone,"  the  charge  falls  to  the  ground,  from 
the  simple  fact  that  plants  that  grow  wild,  and  vegetables, 
were  not  subject  to  tithe.2 

These  charges  are  either  brought  by  someone  who  was 
unacquainted  with  the  real  facts,  or  have  been  invented 
arbitrarily  to  confuse  opponents,  without  any  regard  to 
historical  truth.  It  is  the  same  when  Jesus  accuses  the 
Pharisees  of  the  murder  of  prophets,  and  charges  them 
with  having  slain  Zacharias,  son  of  Barachias,  between 
the  temple  and  the  altar,  and  holds  them  responsible  for 
the  shedding  of  his  innocent  blood  (Matthew  xxiii,  35). 
Here  Zechariah,  the  son  of  Jehoiada,  who  was  stoned  in 
the  court  of  the  temple  by  order  of  King  Joash  (2  Chron. 
xxiv,  21),  is  combined  or  confused  with  Zachariah,  the 
son  of  Baruch,  who  was  slain  by  the  zealots  in  the  temple 
for  supposed  treachery  during  the  siege  of  Jerusalem 
by  the  Komans.8  Indeed,  the  whole  of  the  words  in 

1  See  Nedarim,  106  and  146.  2  Menachoth,  i. 

8  Josephus,  Jewish  War,  iv,  5,  4.     See  also  on  the  subject  K.  Lippe, 
Das  Evangelium  Matthcei  vor  dem  Forum  der  Bibel  und  des  Talmud. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  239 

Matthew  xxiii,  34  :  "  Wherefore,  behold,  I  send  unto  you 
prophets,  and  wise  men,  and  scribes ;  and  some  of  them 
ye  shall  kill  and  crucify,  etc.,"  together  with  the  subse- 
quent prediction  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  are 
based  on  the  prophet  Jeremiah  (vii,  25)  :— 

Since  the  day  that  your  fathers  came  forth  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt  unto  this  day  I  have  even  sent  unto  you  all 
my  servants  the  prophets,  daily  rising  up  early  and  send- 
ing them  : 

Yet  they  hearkened  not  unto  me,  nor  inclined  their  ear, 
but  hardened  their  neck ;  they  did  worse  than  their 
fathers. 

Therefore  thou  shalt  speak  all  these  words  unto  them ; 
but  they  will  not  hearken  to  thee ;  thou  shalt  also  call 
unto  them,  but  they  will  not  answer  thee 

Cut  off  thine  hair,  0  Jerusalem,  and  cast  it  away,  and 
take  up  a  lamentation  on  high  places ;  for  the  Lord  hath 
rejected  and  forsaken  the  generation  of  his  wrath 

And  the  carcases  of  this  people  shall  be  meat  for  the 
fowls  of  the  heaven,  and  for  the  beasts  of  the  earth  ;  and 
none  shall  fray  them  away. 

Then  will  I  cause  to  cease  from  the  cities  of  Judah,  and 
from  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  the  voice  of  mirth  and  the 
voice  of  gladness,  the  voice  of  the  bridegroom  and  the 
voice  of  the  bride ;  for  the  land  shall  be  desolate. 

Many  writers  have  insisted  that  the  relation  of  Jesus 
to  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  affords  a  proof  of  his 
historicity.  Yet  almost  the  very  same  charges  which 
Jesus  makes  against  the  Pharisees  are  brought  by  Isaiah 
against  the  heads  of  the  people.  "  Your  hands  are  full 
of  blood"  the  prophet  says  (i,  15 ;  see  also  lix,  3) ; 
"Wash  you,  make  you  clean;  put  away  the  evil  of  your 
doings  from  before  mine  eyes ;  cease  to  do  evil.  Learn 
to  do  well,  seek  judgment,  relieve  the  oppressed,  judge 
the  fatherless,  plead  for  the  widow."  And  Isaiah  bemoans 
that  Jerusalem,  "the  faithful  city,  full  of  judgment, 
righteousness  lodged  in  it,"  has  "  become  a  harlot "  and 
is  full  of  "  murderers."  "  Thy  princes  are  rebellious  and 
the  companions  of  thieves  ;  every  one  loveth  gifts,  and 
followeth  after  rewards ;  they  judge  not  the  fatherless, 


240 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


neither  doth  the  cause  of  the  widow  come  unto  them." 
"  Woe  unto  them  that  decree  unrighteous  decrees,  and 
that  write  grievousness  which  they  have  prescribed ;  to 
turn  aside  the  needy  from  judgment,  and  to  take  away 
the  right  from  the  poor  of  my  people,  that  widows  may 
be  their  prey,  and  that  they  may  rob  the  fatherless  " 
(x,  1  and  2;  cf.  Mark  xii,  40).  "  Woe  unto  them  that 
call  evil  good,  and  good  evil ;  that  put  darkness  for  light, 
and  light  for  darkness  :  that  put  bitter  for  sweet,  and 
sweet  for  bitter.  Woe  unto  them  that  are  wise  in  their 
own  eyes,  and  prudent  in  their  own  sight "  (v,  20). 
Compare  with  this  the  charges  which  Jesus  brings  against 
the  Pharisees  and  scribes,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  here 
again  Isaiah  was  the  model  of  the  evangelists.  Jesus 
calls  the  Pharisees  "  blind  leaders  of  the  blind  "  (Matthew 
xv,  14)  and  "  blind  Pharisees,"  and  blames  them  for  the 
perverse  ways  they  have  chosen  to  attain  salvation 
(Matthew  xxiii,  16,  19,  24,  and  26).  But  we  read  in 
Isaiah  (iii,  12)  :  "  0  my  people,  they  which  lead  thee 
cause  thee  to  err,  and  destroy  the  way  of  thy  paths,"  and 
the  prophet  returns  incessantly  to  the  blindness  of  the 
people  and  their  leaders.  Jesus  reproaches  the  Pharisees 
with  hypocrisy,  and  tells  them  that  their  service  of  God 
is  mere  lip-service,  and  that  by  their  refining  and  multi- 
plying commandments  they  have  made  the  way  of  salva- 
tion difficult  for  themselves  (Matthew  xv,  8).  Isaiah 
also  complains  to  "  the  Lord  "  that  his  people  approaches 
him  only  with  its  lips,  but  its  heart  is  far  from  him ;  that 
its  fear  of  God  is  only  learned  from  the  precept  of  men 
(xxix,  13),  and  it  does  not  honour  him  in  the  right  way. 

"For your  lips  have  spoken  lies,  your  tongue  hath 

muttered  perverseness.  None  calleth  for  justice,  nor  any 
pleadeth  for  truth  ;  they  trust  in  vanity  and  speak  lies ; 
they  conceive  mischief  and  bring  forth  iniquity  "  (lix, 
3  and  4).  Jesus  calls  the  Pharisees  "  serpents  and  genera- 
tion of  vipers,"  as  John  is  supposed  to  have  done  (Matthew 
xxiii,  33).  Here  again  he  merely  does  what  Isaiah  had 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  241 

done:  "They  hatch  cockatrice'  [vipers']  eggs,  and  weave 
the  spider's  web  ;  he  that  eateth  of  their  eggs  dieth,  and 
that  which  is  crushed  breaketh  out  into  a  viper.  Their 
webs  shall  not  become  garments,  neither  shall  they  cover 
themselves  with  their  works ;  their  works  are  works  of 

iniquity their  thoughts  are  thoughts  of  iniquity 

they  have  made  them  crooked  paths"  (lix,  5-8). 

We  have,  therefore,  every  reason  to  doubt  the  historical 
truth  of  the  relevant  passages  in  the  gospels,  and  this 
doubt  increases  when  we  find  that  even  so  important  a 
scene  as  the  expulsion  of  the  merchants  from  the  temple 
and  the  words  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  on  that  occasion 
are  inspired  by  Isaiah,  and  closely  follow  passages  in  the 
prophet.  What  does  "  the  Lord  "  say  in  the  first  chapter 
of  the  prophet  ? 

To  what  purpose  is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices  unto 
me  ?  saith  the  Lord  :  I  am  full  of  the  burnt  offerings  of 
rams,  and  the  fat  of  fed  beasts ;  and  I  delight  not  in  the 
blood  of  bullocks,  or  of  lambs,  or  of  he-goats. 

When  ye  come  to  appear  before  me,  who  hath  required 
this  at  your  hand,  to  tread  my  courts? 

Bring  no  more  vain  oblations ;  incense  is  an  abomina- 
tion unto  me. 

"Behold,"  says  the  prophet  Malachi  (iii,  1),  continuing 
this, 

I  will  send  my  messenger,  and  he  shall  prepare  the  way 
before  me ;  and  the  Lord,  whom  ye  seek,  shall  suddenly 
come  to  his  temple,  even  the  messenger  of  the  covenant, 
whom  ye  delight  in  ;  behold,  he  shall  come,  saith  the  Lord 
of  hosts. 

But  who  may  abide  the  day  of  his  coming  ?  and  who 
shall  stand  when  he  appeareth  ?  for  he  is  like  a  refiner's 
fire  and  the  fullers'  soap. 

And  he  shall  sit  as  a  refiner  and  purifier  of  silver,  and 
he  shall  purify  the  sons  of  Levi,  and  purge  them  as  gold 
and  silver,  that  they  may  offer  unto  the  Lord  an  offering 
in  righteousness. 

Then  shall  the  offering  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem  be 
pleasant  unto  the  Lord,  as  in  the  days  of  old,  and  as  in 
former  years. 

And  I  will  come  near  to  you  to  judgment ;  and  I  will 

B 


242  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

be  a  swift  witness  against  the  sorcerers,  and  against  the 
adulterers,  and  against  false  swearers,  and  against  those 
that  oppress  the  hireling  in  his  wages,  the  widow,  and  the 
fatherless,  and  that  turn  aside  the  stranger  from  his 
right,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts. 

Add  the  words  of  Zechariah  (xiv,  21)  : — 

Yea,  every  pot  in  Jerusalem  and  in  Judah  shall  be 
holiness  unto  the  Lord  of  hosts  ;  and  all  they  that  sacrifice 
shall  come  and  take  of  them,  and  seethe  therein ;  and  in 
that  day  there  shall  be  no  more  the  Ganaanite  [merchant] 
in  the  house  of  the  Lord  of  hosts. 

And  if  we  further  conclude  that  the  words  of  Jesus,  "  My 
house  shall  be  called  of  all  nations  the  house  of  prayer, 
but  ye  have  made  it  a  den  of  thieves  "  (Mark  xi,  17),  are 
a  combination  of  Isaiah  Ivi,  7  ("  Mine  house  shall  be 
called  an  house  of  prayer  for  all  people  "),  and  Jeremiah 
vii,  11  ("  Is  this  house,  which  is  called  by  my  name, 
become  a  den  of  robbers  in  your  eyes?"), the  historicity 
of  the  narrative  breaks  down  altogether.  The  seventh 
chapter  of  Jeremiah  also  describes  a  closely  similar  situa- 
tion, as  the  first  chapter  of  Isaiah  and  the  narrative  of 
the  cleansing  of  the  temple  : — 

Stand  in  the  gate  of  the  Lord's  house,  and  proclaim 
there  this  word,  and  say,  Hear  the  word  of  the  Lord,  all 
ye  of  Judah,  that  enter  in  at  these  gates  to  worship  the 
Lord. 

Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel :  Amend 
your  ways  and  your  doings,  and  I  will  cause  you  to  dwell 
in  this  place 

For  if  ye  throughly  amend  your  ways  and  your  doings  ; 
if  ye  throughly  execute  judgment  between  a  man  and  his 
neighbour ; 

If  ye  oppress  not  the  stranger,  the  fatherless,  and  the 
widow,  and  shed  not  innocent  blood  in  this  place,  neither 
walk  after  other  gods  to  your  hurt ; 

Then  will  I  cause  you  to  dwell  in  this  place,  in  the  land 
that  I  gave  to  your  fathers,  for  ever  and  ever. 

We  see  from  this  why  Jesus  had  to  go  to  Jerusalem 
and  begin  his  work  with  the  cleansing  of  the  temple,  and 
why  his  threatening  speech  on  the  Pharisees  and  his 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  243 

prediction  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  must  be  con- 
nected with  the  episode.     It  is  all  foreshadowed  in  the 
words   of   the   prophet,    and   there    is   no   guarantee   of 
historical  reality.     In  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Mark  and 
the  twenty-fourth   chapter   of   Matthew  we  do,  indeed, 
detect  an  historical  reality;   but  the  events  referred  to 
have,  as  Graetz  has  shown,  the  colouring  of  the  terrible 
time  of  the  Bar-Kochba  war  in  the  second  century,  when 
Jews  and  Christians  opposed  each  other  in  deadly  enmity 
and  made  each  other  responsible  for  the  judgment,  when 
the  name  of  the  followers  of  Jesus  was  hateful  to  the 
Jews,   when  the   "  Minseans "  were  openly  cursed,  and 
Jews   and   Christians  alike   were  executed  with   fearful 
cruelty  during  the  religious  persecution  under  Hadrian.1 
Yet  here  again  the  model  for  the  prediction  of  Jesus,  or 
for  the  Jewish  Apocalyptic  which  is  at  the  base  of  it,  was 
the  prophet  Isaiah,  when  he  says,  in  regard  to  the  judg- 
ment on  Jerusalem  and  the  accompanying  horrors  :  "And 
the  people  shall  be  oppressed,  every  one  by  another,  and 
every   one   by   his   neighbour ;    the   child   shall   behave 
himself  proudly  against  the  ancient,  and  the  base  against 
the   honourable"    (iii,    5;    see   Mark    xiii,    12).     When 
Jeremiah  (vii,  30)  says,  in  the  same  connection,  "  They 
have  set  their  abominations  in  the  house  which  is  called 
by  my  name,  to  pollute  it,"   we   are  reminded  of   the 
"abomination   of    desolation"    which    is,    according    to 
Mark  (xiii,  14),  to  be  a  sign  for  Christians  to  fly,  and  in 
connection  with  which  Jesus  himself  appeals  to  Daniel 
ix,  27.     How  far  the  whole  story  in  the  gospels  has  been 
influenced  by  the  prophets  is  seen  by  the  cursing  of  the 
fig-tree,  which  is  supposed  to  have  occurred  about  the 
time  of  the  cleansing  of  the  temple,  since  even  this  detail 
was,  apparently,  furnished  by  Isaiah  (i,  29  and  30)  :  "  Ye 
shall  be  confounded  for  the  gardens  that  ye  have  chosen, 
for  ye  shall  be  as  an  oak  whose  leaf  fadeth."     We  may 

1  Lublinski,  Das  werd&tide  Dogma,  p.  75  ;   compare  K.   Lippe,  work 
quoted,  p.  245. 


244  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

add  the  words  of  Jeremiah  (viii,  13),  who  in  the  same 
connection  makes  the  "  Lord "  say :  "  There  shall  be 
[there  are]  no  grapes  on  the  vine,  nor  figs  on  the  fig-tree, 
and  the  leaf  shall  fade  [has  faded] ,  and  the  things  that  I 
have  given  them  shall  pass  away  from  them  "  (see  also 
Hosea  xiii,  15). 

It  is  still  disputed  how  far  the  movement  initiated  by 
Jesus  was  a  movement  of  the  proletariate.  The  gospel 
of  Luke  represents  the  saviour  chiefly  as  a  friend  of  the 
poor  and  oppressed,  Anyone  who  carefully  considers  the 
circumstances  will  see  that  this  feature  also  has  been 
taken  from  Isaiah.  In  the  prophet  "  the  Lord  "  is,  above 
all,  the  saviour  of  the  poor  and  the  unjustly  treated  and 
suffering,  reproaching  the  higher  class  for  their  conduct 
and  charging  them  with  violence  and  injustice :  "  The 
Lord  will  enter  into  judgment  with  the  ancients  of  his 
people  and  the  princes  thereof ;  for  ye  have  eaten  up  the 
vineyard  ;  the  spoil  of  the  poor  is  in  your  houses.  What 
mean  ye  that  ye  beat  my  people  to  pieces  and  grind  the 
faces  of  the  poor?  "  (iii,  14).  It  is  very  probable  that  the 
Jesus-sect  consisted  mainly  from  the  start  of  the  lowest 
sections  of  the  people,  such  as  had  nothing  to  lose  and 
nothing  to  hope  for  in  life,  and  whose  whole  thoughts  and 
feelings  were  bound  up  so  much  the  more  intimately  with 
the  promise  of  a  happy  future  in  the  world  beyond,  which 
was  connected  with  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.  Here, 
again,  it  is  to  Isaiah,  not  to  Jesus,  that  we  must  trace  the 
sympathy  with  the  poor,  who  unites  pity  and  goodwill  to 
the  enslaved  with  anger  against  the  rich  and  the  oppressor, 
and  has  thus  provided  the  basis  of  the  philosophy  of  Chris- 
tianity. When  Wisdom  describes  the  opponents  of  the 
Saviour  and  servant  of  God  as  being  especially  the  wicked 
and  unjust,  it  is  merely  developing  the  lesson  of  Isaiah, 
and  declaring  that  they  are  the  enemies  of  the  poor  and 
weak,  the  oppressors  of  the  lower  people,  a  proud,  hypo- 
critical, and  self-righteous  class  ;  thus  we  get  the  picture 
of  the  Pharisees  and  scribes  as  we  find  it  in  the  gospels, 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  245 

though  it  is  the  Pharisees  of  the  second,  rather  than  the 
first,  century  who  have  contributed  to  its  concrete  features, 
as  these  were,  in  point  of  fact,  the  bitterest  and  most 
irreconcilable  opponents  of  the  poor  members  of  the 
Jesus-sect.  And  if  this  was  the  quality  of  the  opponents 
of  the  Saviour,  there  was  all  the  more  reason  to  represent 
him  as  a,  poor  man,  springing  from  the  lower  class,  and  the 
antithesis  of  Jew  and  Gentile,  just  and  unjust,  of  which 
there  had  originally  been  question  in  Isaiah's  "  servant  of 
God,"  received  in  the  historical  clothing  of  the  mythical 
ideas  the  character  of  a  struggle  of  the  poor  against  the 
rich  and  powerful,  the  laity  against  the  arrogance  of  the 
priests  and  scribes,  the  honest  search  for  salvation  against 
hypocrisy,  the  plain  piety  of  the  prophets  against  the  law 
and  the  pride  of  its  official  representatives. 

(k)  Further  Modifications  of  Prophetical  and  Historical 
Passages. — In  these  circumstances  no  historical  import- 
ance will  be  attached  to  the  attitude  of  Jesus  towards 
places  which  were  hostile  to  him  (Matthew  xi,  20 ;  Luke 
x,  13).  It  is  in  itself  very  improbable  that  Jesus  would 
curse  a  place  because  it  was  not  converted  by  his  miracles 
to  faith  in  him,  as  his  own  relatives  and  nearest  disciples 
are  represented  as  at  times  not  believing  in  him  ;  and 
here  again  the  Evangelists  seem  to  have  had  in  mind  the 
prophet  Isaiah,  who  is  never  tired  of  calling  his  woes 
upon  the  heathen  cities  and  predicting  their  destruction, 
and  whose  threatening  words  are  unmistakably  echoed  in 
the  words  of  Jesus.1 

A  classical  illustration  of  this  connection  of  the  words 
of  Jesus  with  those  of  Isaiah  and  invention  of  situations 
for  them  is  found  in  Matthew  xvi,  15,  where  we  have  the 
famous  confession  of  Peter  and  subsequent  appointment 
of  the  disciple  as  successor  in  the  power  of  the  keys. 
Who  can  fail  to  see  that  there  is  here  a  combination  of 
Isaiah  xxviii,  16  ("  Behold  I  lay  in  Zion  for  a  foundation 

1  Cf.  Isaiah  xiv,  12,  and  Matt,  xi,  23 ;  Isaiah  xiii,  19,  and  xvii,  9  ;  and 
Matthew  xi,  22  and  24. 


246  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

a  stone,  a  tried  stone,  a  precious  corner  stone,  a   sure 

foundation ;    he   that    believeth    shall    not    make  haste 

[become  weak]  "),  and  Isaiah  li,  1  ("  Hearken  to  me,  ye 

that  follow  after  righteousness,  ye  that  seek  the  Lord ; 

look  unto  the  rock  whence  ye  are  hewn look  unto 

Abraham    your   father for   I    called   him  alone,  and 

blessed  him,  and  increased  him "),  with  the  prophet's 
remarkable  reproaches  of  Shebna,  the  "  treasurer "  and 
head  of  the  king's  house,  because  he  had  had  his  tomb 
hewn  out  of  a  rock.  The  prophet  threatens  that  Jahveh 
will  drive  him  from  his  occupation  for  this,  and  continues 
(xxii,  20)  :— 

And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  that  day,  that  I  will  call 
my  servant  Eliakim  the  son  of  Hilkiah  ; 

And  I  will  clothe  him  with  thy  robe,  and  strengthen  him 
with  thy  girdle,  and  I  will  commit  thy  government  into  his 
hand ;  and  he  shall  be  a  father  to  the  inhabitants  of 
Jerusalem,  and  to  the  house  of  Judah. 

And  the  key  of  the  house  of  David  will  I  lay  upon  his 
shoulder ;  so  he  shall  open,  and  none  shall  shut ;  and  he 
shall  shut,  and  none  shall  open. 

And  I  will  fasten  him  as  a  nail  in  a  sure  place  ;  and  he 
shall  be  for  a  glorious  throne  to  his  father's  house. 

Zechariah  also  makes  the  high-priest  Joshua  be  clothed 
ceremoniously  by  the  Lord  with  the  insignia  of  his  office, 
and  appointed  as  head  of  his  house  and  overseer  of  its 
courts.  And  the  high-priest  Joshua  is  in  the  same 
relation  to  the  Messiah  Zerubbabel  as  Peter  is  to  Jesus, 
and  in  the  end  takes  his  place. 

That  Jesus  was  to  die  at  Jerusalem  and,  in  the  sense 
of  Isaiah's  "  servant  of  God,"  expiate  the  sins  of  men  by 
his  death,  was  the  starting-point  of  the  whole  of  this 
inquiry.  To  what  extent  mythical  and  Old  Testament 
motives  have  co-operated  in  the  description  of  the  trial 
and  influenced  the  gospel  story  I  have  already  shown  in 
the  first  part  of  the  Christ-Myth.  Here  I  will  be  content 
to  draw  attention  to  a  further  circumstance,  which,  in 
all  probability,  has  had  a  very  decisive  influence  on  the 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  247 

gospel  narrative  of  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Jesus.     In 
his  history  of  the  Jewish  War  (vi,  5,  3)  Josephus  says 
that   a  certain   Jesus  (!),  son  of  Ananus,  an  unlettered 
provincial,  went  to  Jerusalem  for  the  feast  of  tabernacles 
four  years  before  the  war  broke  out,  when  the  city  still 
enjoyed  perfect  peace  and  prosperity,  and  suddenly  began 
to  cry  out :  "A  voice  from  the  east,  a  voice  from  the 
west,  a  voice  from  the  four  winds,  a  voice  over  Jerusalem 
and  the  temple,  a  voice  over  bridegrooms  and  brides,  a 
voice  over  the  entire  people."     He   cried  this  day  and 
night,    passing    through    all    the    streets   of    the    city. 
Arrested    and    beaten,    he    merely   repeated    his    words 
without  saying  a  word   in   his   defence   or   against  his 
captors.      Brought    before    the     Roman    authority    and 
scourged  until  the  flesh  was  stripped  from  his  bones,  he 
neither   craved   mercy  nor  shed  tears,  but  accompanied 
each  stroke  with  the  mournful  cry :  "  Woe  to  Jerusalem." 
When   Albinus,    the   official,    asked    him   who    he   was, 
whence  he  came,  and  why  he  cried  thus,  he  made  no 
reply,  and  Albinus,  convinced  that  the  man  was  insane, 
set  him  free.     "He  cursed  none  that  beat  him,"  Josephus 
continues,  "  nor  thanked  those  who  gave  him  food ;  he 
gave  no  other  reply  to  any  man  than  his  prophecy  of 
misfortune.     He  was  especially  loud  in  his  cry  on  feast- 
days."     In  the  end  he  was  killed  by  a  stone  during  the 
siege. 

8.— HISTORIANS  AND  THE  GOSPELS. 

When  we  consider  these  things,  we  see  that  the  claim 
that  the  gospel  narrative  could  not  have  been  invented  is 
an  empty  phrase.  It  would  be  well  if  those  who  use  it 
would  be  more  explicit,  and  tell  us  precisely  what  there 
is  that  could  not  be  invented  in  the  narrative. 

No  one  will  question  that  the  figure  of  Jesus  in  the 
gospels  has  a  certain  nucleus,  about  which  all  the  rest 
has  gradually  crystallised.  But  that  this  nucleus  is  an 
historical  personality,  and  not  Isaiah's  "  servant  of  God," 


248 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


the  "just"  of  Wisdom,  and  the  sufferer  of  the  twenty- 
second  psalm,  is  merely  to  beg  the  question  ;  and  this  is 
the  less  justified  since  all  the  really  important  features  of 
the  gospel  life  of  Jesus  owe  their  origin  partly  to  the 
myth,  partly  to  the  expansion  and  application  of  certain 
passages  in  the  prophets. 

Theologians  triumphantly  point  to  the  fact  that  even 
scholars  who  are  not  influenced  by  theology  have  not 
doubted  the  historical  existence  of  Jesus.  When  we 
look  closely  into  the  matter,  however,  we  find  that  these 
scholars  have  not  given  any  critical  consideration  to  the 
question,  that  in  this  matter  they  have  spoken  as  laymen, 
not  as  experts,  and  that  they  adhere  to  the  historicity  of 
the  man  Jesus,  not  on  personal  scientific  grounds,  but 
out  of  conventional  feeling.  This  is  true  of  profane 
historians,  who,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  have  almost  all 
avoided  up  to  the  present  a  serious  discussion  of  the 
question.  It  is  true  of  Zimmern,  who,  as  an  Assyrio- 
logist,  has  certainly  discovered  the  striking  parallels 
between  the  Christ-myth  and  the  Babylonian  myth,  and 
even  admitted  that  these  are  not  mere  casual  analogies, 
but  proofs  of  a  direct  dependence  and  historical  connec- 
tion at  important  points,  yet  who,  as  a  former  theologian, 
adheres  to  the  belief  in  the  historicity  of  Jesus,  without 
finding  any  foundation  for  it.1  In  this  Zimmern  appeals 
to  Wundt  and  to  Hermann  Schneider,  who  says  in  his 
Kultur  und  Denken  der  Babylonier  und  Juden  that  we 
must  retain  the  historicity  of  Jesus  for  reasons  drawn 
from  the  history  of  the  evolution  of  religion.  But  what 
Schneider  leaves  intact  of  the  personality  and  story  of 
Jesus  is  so  meagre,  and  so  devoid  of  solid  foundation, 
that  it  cannot  claim  any  historical  significance.  One  can 
see  for  oneself.  "  That  the  wise  teacher,"  says  Schneider 
of  Jesus,  "  first  appeared  in  adult  age,  and  first  taught  in 
the  synagogues  and  open  air  of  his  native  place,  is  very 

1  Zum  Streit  um  die  ChristusmytJie :  Das  babyloniscJie  Material  in 
seijien  Hauptpunkten  dargestellt,  1910. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  249 

probable ;  also  that  he  gathered  about  him  a  circle  of 
disciples  of  his  own  social  sphere.  That  in  this  way  he 
came  into  collision  with  the  professional  interpreters,  the 
scribes,  and  the  professionally  pious,  the  Pharisees,  is 
very  probable  in  view  of  the  character  of  his  teaching. 
It  must  remain  an  open  question  whether  he  went  to 
Jerusalem  and  was  executed  there  (!)  ;  that  he  should 
seek  disciples  of  his  new  teaching  in  the  centre  of 
Judaism  would  not  be  surprising ;  that  he  was  confused 
on  account  of  some  imprudent  remark  with  the  Messianic 
pretenders  of  that  excited  world,  and  executed,  is  not 
unthinkable,  but  it  is  just  as  possible  that  he  never  left 
Galilee  and  died  there  in  obscurity  (!).  The  gospel  story 
of  the  entrance  into  Jerusalem  and  death  of  the  Messiah 
swarms  with  historical  and  scientific  impossibilities,  and 
is,  in  view  of  the  central  position  of  these  elements  in  the 
dogma,  rather  a  disproof  than  a  proof  of  their  contents" 
(p.  464). 

This,  then,  is  the  opinion  of  the  historical  Jesus  of  a 
scholar  without  theological  prejudice — and  at  the  same 
time  a  typical  example  of  the  blending  of  the  method  of 
subtraction  with  the  practice  of  deducing  reality  from 
possibility,  as  we  generally  find  in  this  department.  I 
should  imagine  that  a  theologian  would  say  in  face  of 
such  witnesses  :  "  Save  us  from  our  friends." 

9.— THE  WORDS  OF  THE  LOBD. 

(a)  The  Tradition  of  the  Words  of  the  Lord. — Wundt 
also  holds,  as  quoted  by  Zimmern,  that  "  the  story  of  the 
Passion  is,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  [which  ?]  details 
of  sufficient  (!)  historical  credibility,  a  tissue  of  legends." 
"  But,"  he  says,  "  what  we  do  not  find  affected  by  these 
legends,  or  in  any  of  the  mythological  prototypes,  are  the 
sayings  and  discourses  of  Jesus,  as  they  are  reported  in 
the  synoptic  gospels."1  Schneider  also  sees  in  his  teaching 

1  Volkerpsychologie,  ii,  3,  528. 


250  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

the  best  proof  of  the  historical  existence  of  Jesus  (p.  465). 
What  must  we  make  of  this  statement  ?  In  other  words, 
what  evidence  do  the  words  of  Jesus  afford  of  his  historical 
reality  ? 

We  have  already  pointed  out  that  the  contents  of  the 
gospels  point  to  two  sources — a  record  of  the  actions  of 
Jesus  and  a  collection  of  his  sayings,  which  we  obtain 
from  the  parallels  in  Matthew  and  Luke  as  compared 
with  Mark.  But  we  also  pointed  out  how  uncertain  our 
knowledge  of  this  collection  of  sayings  is — so  uncertain 
that  we  may  justly  speak  of  this  source  as  "  a  completely 
unknown  x." 

What  makes  this  tradition  of  sayings  so  valuable  to 
theologians  is  the  circumstance  that  they  believe  it  brings 
them  much  nearer  to  Jesus  than  the  gospel  of  Mark.  It 
is  true  that  they  cannot  deny  that,  even  if  they  succeeded 
in  entirely  and  confidently  reconstructing  this  tradition, 
of  which  there  is  as  yet  no  question,  we  should  still  have 
only  a  book  with  a  certain  literary  form  or  composition, 
arranged  on  the  lines  of  literary  composition.  "  By  means 
of  the  sayings-source  we  do  not  at  once  reach  Jesus,  but 
the  community.  To  put  it  precisely  :  in  suitable  cases 
we  learn  from  the  source  what  seemed  to  the  community 
the  characteristic,  distinctive,  and  indispensable  thing  in 
Jesus  "  (Weiss,  p.  159). 

Now,  in  view  of  the  entire  constitution  of  the  so-called 
primitive  community,  that  is  not  a  great  achievement. 
It  is  even  less  when  we  reflect  that,  as  we  have  previously 
pointed  out,  we  are  not  at  all  sure  that  the  traditional 
"  words  of  the  Lord  "  are  the  words  of  a  single  historical 
individual — namely,  the  historical  Jesus.  Theologians 
assume  this;  but  they  are  again  merely  begging  the 
question — a  vice  which  infects  the  whole  of  their  historical 
method.  "  Words  of  the  Lord  " — we  cannot  repeat  it 
too  often — are  in  Scripture  so  frequently  merely  words 
which  the  Lord  (namely,  Jahveh)  gives  to  his  followers 
through  the  "  spirit  "  that,  even  granting  the  existence  of 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  251 

an  historical  Jesus,  it  would  be  impossible  to  discriminate 
between  what  is  due  to  the  "  spirit "  in  the  collection  and 
what  is  due  to  Jesus.1  We  do  not  know  whether  the 
collection  of  sayings  expressly  contained  only  the  words 
of  Jesus,  or  also  included  sayings  which  were  on  other 
grounds  thought  worthy  of  being  admitted.  We  cannot 
say  whether  words  which  were  believed  to  have  been 
spoken  under  the  influence  of  the  "  spirit "  were  not 
afterwards  incorporated  in  the  gospels  and  put  in  the 
mouth  of  Jesus  simply  because  the  best  and  most  important 
sayings  must  have  come,  in  the  opinion  of  his  followers, 
from  the  lips  of  him  whom  they  venerated  as  "  the 
Lord  "  in  the  specific  sense  of  the  word. 

That  a  great  deal  that  is  tendentious,  partisan,  mis- 
understood, and  of  late  origin  has  found  its  way  among 
the  "  words  of  the  Lord  "  in  the  gospels,  that  different 
phases  of  religious  thought  have  found  expression  in  them 
and  armed  themselves  with  the  authority  of  the  "  Lord 
of  Lords,"  is  admitted  by  all  critical  students.  Some 
idea  can  be  formed  of  how  much  breaks  down  in  this 
way  if  one  takes  the  trouble  to  strike  out  of  the  gospels 
the  words  of  Jesus  which  are  recognised  as  interpolations. 

But  have  we  any  guarantee  of  the  substantial  truth- 
fulness at  least  of  the  tradition?  We  are  referred  to 
the  form  of  the  tradition,  the  deep  impression  of  the 
words  of  the  teacher  in  the  memory  of  his  hearers,  the 
accurate,  almost  verbal,  retention  of  detail  that  distin- 
guishes the  rabbinical  instruction.2  We  are  told  that  the 


1  Just  as  in  the  collection  of  sayings  it  is  supposed  to  have  been  written, 
"  Jesus  says,"  etc.,  so  in  the  prophets  we  find  the  words  of  Jahveh  intro- 
duced by  "  A  word  of  Jahveh,"  "  Thus  says  Jahveh,"  etc.     We  have  already 
seen  that  Jesus  is  possibly  only  another  name  for  Jahveh. 

2  If  this  be  true,  how  is  it  that  such  an  important  detail  as  the  Lord's 
Prayer  has  been  handed  down  to  us  in  such  various  forms  ?     No  one  knows 
exactly  what  words  Jesus  used  in  this  prayer.     According  to  Harnack,  the 
earliest  version  is:  "Father,  the  bread  for  to-morrow  give  us  to-day,  and 
forgive  us  our  sins  as  we  forgive  others,  and  lead  us  not  into  temptation." 
Sit zunge nber icht  der  Preussichen    Akademie  der    Wissenschaften,   1904, 
Bd.  V.     Cf.  Steudel  in  Berliner  Religionsgesprcich,  "  Hat  Jesus  gelebt  ?" 
1910,  59  f . 


252  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

Talmud  shows  the  tenacity  and  conscientiousness  of  such 
a  tradition.  Granting,  however,  that  the  circumstances 
of  the  tradition  were  really  so  favourable,  how  came  the 
various  sayings  of  Jesus  to  be  handed  down  to  us  in  so 
many  different  forms  as  we  actually  have  them  ?  How 
can  we  explain  that  so  much  was  lost  of  the  words  of 
Jesus  that  was  certainly  important,  while  so  much  that 
is  unimportant  was  preserved  ?  Yet  we  cannot  suppose 
that  Jesus  said  and  preached  no  more  than  we  have  in 
the  gospels  as  his  words.  "  What  was  a  precept  of  the 
school  to  the  pupils  of  the  rabbis,"  says  Weiss,  "  became 
for  the  disciples  of  Jesus  a  question  of  beatitude.  The 
words  of  the  master  were  a  matter  of  life  and  death ;  they 
were  the  foundation  of  the  community,  and  the  accurate 
determination  of  the  words  was  their  most  important 
duty"  (p.  162).  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  the 
ostensibly  earliest  Christian  writings  lay  so  little  stress 
on  the  words  of  Jesus  that  Clement,  James,  The  Teaching 
of  the  Apostles,  etc.,  quote  the  words  of  the  Lord  without 
expressly  describing  them  as  sayings  of  Jesus  ; x  that  Paul 
himself  seems  to  know  nothing  of  them,  since,  as  we  saw, 
there  is  not  a  single  clear  case  of  his  referring  to  sayings 


1  Thus  we  read  in  Clement  (xlvi,  8)  the  saying  of  Jesus :  "  Woe  unto  that 

man it  had  been  good  for  that  man  if  he  had  not  been  born  "  (Matthew 

xxvi,  24),  but  with  no  reference  to  Jesus.  Again,  in  xlix,  1,  we  find  a  hymn 
to  love  which  is  closely  related  to  1  Corinthians  xiii,  1,  though  Paul  is  not 
mentioned.  We  read  in  1  Clement,  xiii,  1  :  "  Let  us  before  all  things  be 
mindful  of  the  words  of  the  Lord  Jesus  which  he  spoke,  teaching  meekness 
and  patience.  For  he  also  said  :  Have  mercy,  that  ye  may  find  mercy. 
Forgive,  that  ye  may  find  forgiveness.  As  ye  do,  so  will  it  be  done  unto 
you.  If  ye  are  meek,  ye  shall  find  meekness.  With  what  measure  ye 
mete,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you  again  (Matthew  vii,  1 ;  Luke  vi,  36-38  ; 
Matthew  v,  7,  and  vi,  14  ;  Luke  vi,  31).  With  this  command  and  these  rules 
we  will  confirm  ourselves  in  lowliness,  so  that  we  may  walk  in  obedience  to 
his  holy  words."  But  we  also  read  on  one  occasion  :  "  For  the  holy  word 
says :  To  this  man  will  I  look,  even  to  him  that  is  poor  and  of  a  contrite 
spirit,  and  trembleth  at  my  word  " — a  quotation  from  Isaiah  (Ixvi,  2). 
In  The  Teaching  of  the  Apostles  (i,  2)  the  doctrine  of  the  two  ways  is 
developed,  and  it  is  also  quoted  in  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  (xviii,  1)  ;  and 
we  find  words  which  echo  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  though  Jesus  is  not 
mentioned  as  their  author,  and  no  indication  is  given  that  they  are  not 
common  Jewish  sayings,  as  the  quotation  of  the  twelve  Mosaic  com- 
mandments suggests. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  253 

of  Jesus,  even  where  the  similarity  of  idea  ought  to  have 
reminded  him  of  them,  or  the  context  should  have  actually 
compelled  him  to  quote  the  authority  of  the  master  for 
his  views. 

How  is  it  that,  if  Weiss  is  right,  the  words  of  Jesus 
played  hardly  any  part  in  the  early  days  of  Christianity  ? 
Weinel's  statement  (p.  15)  that  the  sayings  of  Jesus,  not 
Christology,  were  the  chief  concern  of  the  first  Christians 
cannot  be  vindicated  by  a  single  historical  fact.  According 
to  Acts,  the  first  Christian  sermon  was  not  a  repetition  of 
the  teaching  of  Jesus,  but  a  discourse  about  Jesus,  as  we 
learn  in  the  instances  of  Peter,  Stephen,  Philip,  and 
Apollo.1  If  they  really  believed  that  these  sayings 
belonged  to  an  historical  Jesus,  why  have  they  not  been 
more  carefully  preserved  ?  How  was  it  possible  for  this 
collection  of  sayings  to  be  lost  ?  One  would  think  that  so 
valuable  a  thing  as  the  words  of  their  Lord  and  master 
would  have  been  guarded  by  the  community  as  a  sacred 
treasure,  copied  innumerable  times,  and  handed  on  from 
one  generation  to  another.  Instead  of  this,  it  seems  that 
the  mere  memory  of  the  existence  of  such  a  collection 
was  entirely  lost  by  Christians  for  centuries,  and  it  was 
reserved  for  modern  critical  theologians  to  establish  the 
former  existence  of  such  a  source.  As  if  providence  had 
wished  to  reserve  this  material  for  their  learned  investi- 
gations. 

(b)  The  Controversies  with  the  Pharisees. — An  attempt 
has  recently  been  made  to  provide  a  proof  that  the 
"  sayings  of  the  Lord  "  in  the  gospels  really  come  from 
the  historical  Jesus.  These  sayings  and  teachings,  it  is 
said,  these  conflicts  with  the  Pharisees,  these  conversa- 
tions with  the  disciples,  parables,  etc.,  are  so  "  unique  " 
and  "  inimitable,"  stand  so  far  above  all  the  rest  of  ancient 
literature,  and  have  so  pronounced  a  personal  character, 
that  they  could  only  come  from  a  personality,  and,  indeed, 

1  Acts  ii,  14  ;  iii,  12  ;  vii,  2  ;  viii,  5  and  32  ;  xviii,  24. 


254  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

from  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels.  The  logical  defect  of  this 
deduction  is  obvious.  No  one  has  ever  questioned  that 
the  words  of  Jesus  in  the  gospels  have  a  thoroughly 
personal  and  individual  colouring,  that  they  convey  an 
impression  of  definite  historical  situations,  and  that  they 
reflect  the  feelings  and  thoughts  of  a  personal  inner  life. 
But  whether  this  was  the  life  of  a  single  individual,  or  a 
number  of  individuals  in  different  circumstances  contri- 
buted to  the  "  sayings  of  the  Lord  "  in  the  gospels — 
whether  this  single  personality  was  the  Jesus  of  the 
gospels  or  some  prominent  rabbi — is  the  great  point  in 
question. 

The  many  irreconcilable  contradictions  that  we  find  in 
the  sayings  of  Jesus  rather  suggest  that  several  persons, 
not  one  only,  are  behind  them.  And  if  they  really 
belonged  to  one  single  personality,  they  could  be  traced 
to  Jesus  only  in  so  far  as  he  was  known  to  us  from  other 
sources ;  in  that  case  only  should  we  have  a  right  to  say 
that  none  but  so  "  unique  "  a  person  as  this  Jesus  could 
have  uttered  such  "  unique  "  sayings.  But  we  know  this 
Jesus  and  the  "  uniqueness  "  of  his  inner  life  only  from 
the  words  ascribed  to  him  in  the  gospels.  Thus  the 
argument  always  runs  in  a  circle  when  one  attempts  to 
prove  the  "  uniqueness  "  of  Jesus  from  the  character  of 
his  words,  and  the  "  unique  "  character  of  his  words  from 
the  "  uniqueness  "  of  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels. 

Are  these  sayings  really  of  such  a  character  that  they 
must  be  due  to  so  extraordinary  a  personality  as  Jesus  ? 

Take  his  conflicts  with  the  Pharisees.  The  Evangelists 
are  eager  to  show  the  superiority  of  their  Jesus  to  the 
Pharisees  and  scribes  in  certain  distinctive  circumstances, 
and  to  put  it  in  the  clearest  possible  light.  Over  and  over 
again  the  Pharisees  approach  the  Saviour  to  put  him  to 
the  test  or  ensnare  him  in  the  coils  of  their  rabbinical 
dialectic,  and  over  and  over  again  they  retire  confounded 
and  shamed  by  the  clearness  of  his  mind.  Yet  in  very 
many  cases  the  way  in  which  Jesus  confounds  his  learned 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  255 

opponents  is  such  that  we  hardly  know  which  is  the  more 
surprising,  the  utter  unsoundness  and  meaninglessness  of 
his  replies,  or  the  simplicity  of  the  Pharisees  in  accepting 
them. 

Thus,  for  instance,  the  disciples  pluck  ears  of  corn  on 
the  Sabbath,  and  when  the  Pharisees  reproach  Jesus  for 
this  he  replies :  "  Have  ye  not  read  what  David  did, 
when  he  was  an  hungred,  and  they  that  were  with  him  ? 
How  he  entered  into  the  house  of  God,  and  did  eat  the 
shewbread,  which  was  not  lawful  for  him  to  eat,  neither 
for  them  which  were  with  him,  but  only  for  the  priests  ? 
Or  have  ye  not  read  in  the  law,  how  that  on  the  Sabbath 
days  the  priests  in  the  temple  profane  the  Sabbath,  and 
are  blameless  ?  "  (Matthew  xii,  3).  As  if  the  action  of  the 
disciples  could  be  in  any  way  compared  with  the  conduct 
of  a  hungry  army,  to  which,  moreover,  the  Jewish  law 
even  permitted  the  eating  of  unclean  food  !  And  as  if 
the  offering  of  sacrifice  in  the  temple  on  the  Sabbath  were 
forbidden ! i 

On  another  occasion  the  Sadducees  put  him  the  captious 
question,  to  which  husband  a  woman  would  belong  after 
death  who  had  married  seven  brothers  in  succession,  and 
Jesus  reproaches  them  with  not  knowing  the  law,  since  in 
the  next  world  people  would  neither  marry  nor  be  given 
in  marriage,  but  be  like  the  angels  in  heavens,  and  he 
adds :  "As  touching  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  have  ye 
not  read  that  which  was  spoken  unto  you  by  God,  saying, 
I  am  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the 
God  of  Jacob  ?  God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of 
the  living.  And  when  the  multitude  heard  this  " — the 
Evangelist  observes — "  they  were  astonished  at  his  doc- 
trine" (Matthew  xxii,  30-33) .  Why  were  they  astonished  ? 
Can  they  really  have  supposed  that  the  words  of  Jesus 
were  a  refutation  of  the  Sadducaean  view  that  there  was 


1  See  the  Tractate  Schabboth,  fol.  17,  col.  1  :  "The  operations  involved 
in  offering  sacrifice  are  not  considered  as  work — that  is  to  say,  as  breaking 
the  Sabbath."  See  also  Rosh  hashana,  fol.  21,  col.  2,  etc. 


256 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


no  resurrection  of  the  dead  ?  That  God  is  the  God  of  the 
living  does  not  prove  that  life  is  not  extinguished  at  death. 
And  what  the  object  is  of  bringing  in  the  patriarchs  it  is 
impossible  to  say.  When,  moreover,  Jesus  accuses  the 
Sadducees  of  ignorance  of  the  law,  he  clearly  forgets  that 
precisely  according  to  the  law  the  woman  never  ceases  to 
be  the  wife  of  her  first  dead  husband,  however  many 
husbands  she  may  subsequently  wed.1  How,  then,  could 
he  silence  the  Sadducees,  or  "  stop  their  mouths,"  as 
Luther  puts  it,  with  such  a  remark  ? 

Another  time  the  Pharisees  ask  him,  as  he  teaches  in 
the  temple,  by  what  authority  he  does  this ;  and  Jesus 
replies  with  a  question  about  the  origin  of  John's  baptism, 
whether  it  was  from  heaven  or  from  men ;  and  when  they 
dare  not  reply — for  certain  very  improbable  reasons — he 
answers,  arrogantly :  "  Neither  tell  I  you  by  what  authority 
I  do  these  things"  (Matthew  xxi,  23),  and  thus  evades 
their  question. 

The  greatest  victory  of  Jesus  over  the  Pharisees  is 
supposed  to  have  been  when  he  asked  them  whose  son 
the  Messiah  was,  and  they  said,  the  son  of  David.  He 
then  said  to  them  :  "  How  then  doth  David  in  spirit  call 
him  Lord,  saying,  The  Lord  said  unto  my  Lord,  Sit  thou 
on  my  right  hand,  till  I  make  thine  enemies  thy  footstool 
[Psalm  ex,  1]  ?  If  David  then  call  him  Lord,  how  is  he 
his  son?"  (Matthew  xxii,  43-45).  The  gospel  says  that 
this  reply  so  confounded  the  Pharisees  that  they  dared  not 
answer  him,  and  put  no  more  questions  to  him  from  that 
day.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  reply  of  Jesus  contains  so 
obvious  a  fallacy  that  at  the  most  we  could  only  under- 
stand the  behaviour  of  the  Pharisees  as  a  reluctance  to 
have  anything  further  to  do  with  a  man  who  answered 
in  such  a  way. 

Generally  speaking,  the  Pharisees  in  the  gospel  descrip- 
tion are  anything  but  plausible.  These  zealots  of  the 

1  K.  Lippe,  work  quoted,  p.  228. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  257 

law  who  ask  Jesus  for  a  proof  of  his  Messianic  mission 
(Matthew  xii,  38;  xvi,  1),  while  the  law  expressly  forbids 
them  to  attach  any  importance  to  the  signs  and  wonders 
of  a  false  prophet  (Deut.  xiii),  these  heads  of  the  com- 
munity who  allow  themselves  to  be  called  by  Jesus 
hypocrites,  blind,  serpents,  and  generation  of  vipers, 
calmly  submit  to  these  insults  before  the  crowd,  put 
their  hands  in  their  pockets,  plot  the  destruction  of  Jesus, 
and  meantime  allow  him  to  teach  in  the  temple  and  the 
synagogue — these  are  certainly  not  historical  personalities, 
especially  when  we  observe  that  none  of  them  is  personally 
described  or  named,  whereas  the  Talmud  scarcely  ever 
omits  to  name  the  persons  in  its  record  of  the  innumer- 
able discussions  of  the  rabbis  with  their  opponents.  We 
have  already  seen  the  origin  of  these  Pharisees  who  are 
silenced  by  Jesus  on  every  occasion  and  quietly  allow 
themselves  to  be  "  struck  on  the  mouth  "  or  instructed 
by  him  ;  they  come  from  the  book  of  Job,  where  we  read 
in  the  twenty-ninth  chapter :  "  The  princes  refrained 
talking,  and  laid  their  hand  on  their  mouth.  The  nobles 
held  their  peace,  and  their  tongue  cleaved  to  the  roof  of 
their  mouth.  When  the  ear  heard  me,  then  it  blessed 

me After  my  words  they  spake  not  again;  and  my 

speech  dropped  upon  them.  And  they  waited  for  me  as 
for  the  rain,  and  they  opened  their  mouth  wide  as  for  the 
latter  rain  " — that  is  to  say,  they  looked  forward  eagerly 
to  the  words  of  Job,  which  the  Evangelist  has  perverted 
into  the  sense  that  the  Pharisees  sought  to  destroy  Jesus, 
not  to  be  inwardly  strengthened  by  him.  In  any  case, 
we  have  no  reason  to  be  "  surprised  "  at  the  way  in  which 
Jesus  escapes  the  toils  of  his  enemies.  His  dialectic  is 
by  no  means  of  a  high  order,  as  anyone  will  perceive 
who  compares  the  conflicts  of  Jesus  and  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees  with  the  way  in  which  Socrates  confounds  his 
opponents  in  the  Platonic  dialogues.  There  is  no 
question  whatever  of  "  uniqueness  "  in  this  respect  in  the 
case  of  Jesus. 


258  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

(c)  Sayings  of  Jesus  on  the  Weak  and  Lowly. — 
Among  the  finest  characteristics  of  Jesus  we  must  place, 
it  is  said,  his  relation  to  the  lowly,  his  love  of  children, 
his  sympathy  with  the  least  conspicuous  objects  in  nature. 
It  is  assuredly  a  touching  and  amiable  feature  in  a  man 
like  Jesus  to  stoop  so  lovingly  to  the  weakest  of  the  weak, 
to  look  with  tender  eye  on  the  flowers  of  the  field  and 
the  birds  of  heaven,  to  contrast  their  indifference  to  the 
future  with  man's  constant  concern  about  his  main- 
tenance (Matthew  vi,  26).  But  that  this  feature  is  not 
"  unique  "  we  learn  from  the  Talmud,  where  we  read : 
"  Hast  thou  ever  seen  a  bird  or  a  beast  of  the  forest  that 
must  secure  its  food  by  work  ?  God  feeds  them,  and 
they  need  no  effort  to  obtain  their  nourishment.  Yet  the 
beast  has  a  mind  only  to  serve  man.  He,  however, 
knows  his  higher  vocation — namely,  to  serve  God  ;  does  it 
become  him,  then,  to  care  only  for  his  bodily  wants  ?" 
(Kidushin  4,  Halach  14).  "  Hast  thou  ever  seen  a  lion 
bearing  a  burden,  or  a  stag  gathering  the  summer's 
fruits,  or  a  wolf  buying  oil  ?  Yet  all  these  creatures  are 
sustained,  though  they  know  no  care  about  their  food. 
But  I,  who  have  been  created  to  serve  my  creator,  must 
be  more  concerned  about  my  nourishment."1 

Further,  one  might  hold  that  Isaiah's  description  of 
the  Saviour  as  especially  sympathetic  to  the  weak  and 
needy  would  suffice  of  itself  to  "  invent "  the  feeling  of 
Jesus  for  children  and  embody  it  in  the  figure  of  his 
human  personality.  Children  were,  as  the  Talmud 
shows,  greatly  cherished  among  the  Jews,  and  the  love 
of  them  is  deep-rooted  in  the  Jewish  character.  "  Out 
of  the  mouth  of  babes  and  sucklings,"  says  the  psalmist 
(viii,  2),  "hast  thou  ordained  strength  [praise]";  and 
Jesus  repeats  this  to  the  high-priests  and  their  followers, 
when  they  are  indignant  at  the  cry  with  which  the 
children  greet  him  in  the  temple  (Matthew  xxi,  15).  In 

1  See  also  Ps.  cxxxvi,  25  ;  cxlvii,  9. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  259 

the  same  psalm  it  is  said  (4  and  5) :  "  What  is  man  that 
thou  art  mindful  of  him  ?  and  the  son  of  man  that  thou 
visitest  him?  For  thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels,  and  hast  crowned  him  with  glory  and 
honour."  "About  the  Messiah,"  says  the  Talmud,  "will 
all  gather  who  seek  in  the  law,  especially  the  little  ones 
of  the  world ;  for  by  the  boys  who  still  frequent  school 
will  his  strength  be  increased."1 

From  these  words  we  understand,  even  from  the 
mythic-symbolical  point  of  view,  the  saying :  "  Suffer 
little  children,  and  forbid  them  not,  to  come  unto  me, 
for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven  "  (Matthew  xix,  14) 
or  the  scene  where  Jesus  calls  a  child,  sets  him  in  the 
midst  of  the  disciples,  who  have  asked  who  is  the  greatest 
in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  says :  "  Verily,  I  say  unto 
you,  Except  ye  be  converted,  and  become  as  little  children, 
ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Whoso- 
ever therefore  shall  humble  himself  as  this  little  child, 
the  same  is  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  "  (Matthew 
xviii,  2-4).  We  read  in  the  Talmud:  "A  young  man 
deserves  praise  when  he  becomes  [in  mind]  like  the 
children"  (Tanchuma,  fol.  36,  col.  4),  and  "Whosoever 
humbles  himself  in  this  life  for  love  of  the  law,  the  same 
will  be  reckoned  among  the  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven"  (Baha  Mezia,  fol.  84,  col.  2).  It  is  not  clear, 
moreover,  that  the  meaning  of  the  relevant  passages  in 
the  gospels  is  not  symbolical,  and  the  "  children "  for 
whom  Jesus  cares  are  not,  as  W.  B.  Smith  says, 
proselytes  to  the  belief  in  Jesus.  For  the  Talmud  speaks 
of  those  who  have  recently  joined  Judaism  as  "  children."8 
"  Whoso  shall  receive  one  such  little  child  in  my  name 
receiveth  me.  But  whoso  shall  offend  one  of  these  little 
ones  which  believe  in  me,  it  were  better  for  him  that  a 
millstone  were  hanged  about  his  neck,  and  that  he  were 
drowned  in  the  depth  of  the  sea"  (Matthew  xviii, 

1  Sohar  to  Exodus,  fol.  4,  col.  13. 

*  Jebamoth  22a,  486,  976  ;  Necharoth  47a. 


260  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

5  and  6).  We  must  remember  the  many  conflicts 
among  the  first  Christians,  even  in  the  second  century, 
as  to  whether  a  pagan  on  embracing  the  Christian  faith 
should  submit  to  the  Jewish  law  and  be  circumcised  or 
not,  and  the  disdain  of  the  Jew-Christians  for  the  Gentile- 
Christians.  "  Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these 
little  ones ;  for  I  say  unto  you,  that  in  heaven  their 
angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of  my  Father  which  is 
in  heaven.  For  the  son  of  man  is  come  to  save  that 

which  was  lost Even  so  it  is  not  the  will  of  your 

Father  which  is  in  heaven  that  one  of  these  little  ones 
should  perish"  (Matthew  xviii,  10,  14).  This  should 
make  an  end  of  such  sentimental  stuff  as  Weinel  puts 
before  his  readers  on  p.  86  of  his  work,  as  a  sort  of 
Indo-Germanic  importation  into  the  feelings  and  ideas 
of  Jesus,  when  he  says  that  Jesus  was  enabled  to  "  hear 
the  voice  of  God  in  bush  and  tree,  in  the  harvest  and  the 
song  of  birds,  in  the  blooming  flowers  and  the  play  of 
children." 

Jesus  says  in  Matthew  xi,  25  :— 

I  thank  thee,  0  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth, 
because  thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and 
prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes. 

Even  so,  Father  ;  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  thy  sight. 

All  things  are  delivered  unto  me  of  my  Father  ;  and  no 
man  knoweth  the  Son,  but  the  Father ;  neither  knoweth 
any  man  the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever 
the  Son  will  reveal  him. 

Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest. 

Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me  ;  for  I  am 
meek  and  lowly  in  heart ;  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your 
souls. 

For  my  yoke  is  easy,  and  my  burden  is  light. 

These  words  are  among  the  finest  attributed  to  Jesus, 
but  they  are  based  on  literary  borrowing.  The  place  that 
Jesus  ascribes  here  to  himself  in  regard  to  his  father  is 
precisely  the  relation  of  wisdom  to  Jahveh  in  the  book  of 
Wisdom  (vii,  14 ;  viii,  3  ;  xvii,  28).  In  the  book  of  Jesus 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  261 

Sirach  also  it  is  written  :  "  Secure  wisdom,  which  is  not 
bought  with  gold.  Bend  your  necks  under  its  yoke,  and 
let  your  soul  receive  justification.  Close  is  it  to  him  who 
desires  it,  and  whosoever  gives  himself  to  it,  he  findeth  it. 
See  it  with  your  eyes ;  little  have  I  laboured,  and  have 
found  much  refreshment  in  it "  (li,  25).  In  fact,  Wisdom 
itself  makes  Sirach  speak  thus :  "  Come  unto  me,  ye  that 
desire  me,  and  sate  yourselves  with  my  fruits.  For  the 
thought  of  me  is  better  than  sweet  honey,  and  the 
possession  of  me  better  than  virgin  honey.  They  that 
eat  me  shall  ever  hunger  after  me,  and  they  that  drink 
me  shall  ever  thirst  after  me.  He  that  heareth  me  shall 
not  be  ashamed,  and  they  that  use  me  shall  not  sin  " 
(xxiv,  19).  The  idea  of  the  supper  in  which  the  blood  of 
the  Lord  is  drunk  and  his  body  eaten,  to  purify  from  sin, 
is  perceived  in  these  words.  But  we  fully  realise  that 
these  words  of  Jesus  were  really  taken  from  the  Scriptures 
and  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  by  the  Evangelist  when 
we  find  that  the  first  conception  goes  back  once  more  to 
the  prophet  Isaiah,  the  great  source  of  the  gospels  : — 

Ho,  everyone  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters,  and 
he  that  hath  no  money ;  come  ye,  buy,  and  eat ;  yea, 
come,  buy  wine  and  milk  without  money  and  without 
price. 

Wherefore  do  ye  spend  money  for  that  which  is  not 
bread?  and  your  labour  for  that  which  satisfieth  not? 
hearken  diligently  unto  me,  and  eat  ye  that  which  is  good, 
and  let  your  soul  delight  itself  in  fatness. 

Incline  your  ear,  and  come  unto  me  ;  hear,  and  your 
soul  shall  live ;  and  I  will  make  an  everlasting  covenant 
with  you,  even  the  sure  mercies  of  David  (Isaiah  Iv,  1-3). 

In  this  sense  Jesus  sends  away  the  rich  young  man 
who  cannot  bring  himself  to  abandon  his  wealth  for  the 
sake  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  :  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you, 
That  a  rich  man  shall  hardly  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 

heaven It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye 

of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  God"  (Matthew  xix,  23).  This,  again,  is  a  familiar 


262  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

saying  of  the  rabbis,  in  which  the  man  who  pretended  to 
believe  some  impossibility  was  asked  :  "  Are  you  from 
Pombeditha  [in  Babylonia],  where  they  can  drive  an 
elephant  through  the  eye  of  a  needle?"  And  when 
Jesus  says  to  the  disciples,  who  ask  about  their  reward 
for  following  him  :  "  Everyone  that  hath  forsaken  houses, 
or  brothers,  or  sisters,  or  father,  or  mother,  or  wife,  or 
children,  or  lands,  for  my  name's  sake,  shall  receive  an 
hundredfold,  and  shall  inherit  everlasting  life"  (Matthew 
xix,  29),  he  is  merely  repeating  the  blessing  of  Moses 
(Deut.  xxxiii,  9) :  "  Who  said  unto  his  father  and  to  his 
mother,  I  have  not  seen  him  ;  neither  did  he  acknowledge 

his  brethren,  nor  knew  his  own  children bless,  Lord, 

his  substance,  and  accept  the  work  of  his  hands."  "  Many 
that  are  first  shall  be  last,  and  the  last  shall  be  first," 
Jesus  continues.  And  the  Talmud  supports  him,  saying  : 
"  Whoso  lowereth  himself,  him  doth  God  exalt ;  whoso 
exalteth  himself,  him  doth  God  lower ;  whoso  seeketh 
greatness,  from  him  it  flees  ;  whoso  fleeth  greatness,  it 
runneth  after  him "  (Erubim,  136 ;  cf.  Baba  Bathra, 
fol.  10,  col.  3). 

(d)  Jesus' s  Belief  in  God  the  Father. — But  Jesus, 
theologians  assure  us,  taught  a  new  and  unheard-of 
conception  of  God,  and  in  this  especially  is  the  "  unique- 
ness" and  unsurpassable  greatness  of  his  teaching;  for 
such  an  achievement  is  only  possible  to  a  supreme 
religious  genius — namely,  Jesus.  God  as  a  loving  father, 
in  contrast  to  the  wrathful  and  stern  God  of  Judaism ! 

1  Baha  mezia,  fol.  38,  col.  2  ;  see  also  Bereschit,  fol.  55,  col.  2.  We 
saw  previously  how  the  story  of  the  rich  youth  is  regarded  by  Schmiedel 
as  one  of  the  "  pillars  of  a  really  scientific  life  of  Jesus,"  because  it  contains 
the  disavowal  of  the  epithet  "good  "  on  the  part  of  Jesus.  But,  as  Smith 
has  shown  in  his  Ecce  Deus,  there  is  question  only  of  a  parable.  The  rich 
youth  is  a  symbol  of  Judaism,  which  must  renounce  its  property — its 
prerogatives  and  prejudices — and  share  them  with  the  Gentiles,  and  "  goes 
away  sorrowful "  because  it  has  not  the  courage  to  do  so.  The  words, 
"And  he  was  sad  at  that  saying,  and  went  away  grieved"  (Mark  x,  22), 
are,  as  Smith  has  shown,  strikingly  based  upon  the  words  of  Isaiah  Ivii,  17, 
where  the  Greek  translation  says  of  Israel:  "And  he  was  grieved,  and 
went  his  way  sadly."  May  not  the  whole  story  be  merely  a  paraphrase  of 
the  words  of  Isaiah  ? 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  263 

"  God  and  the  soul,  the  soul  and  its  God  " — since  Harnack 
published  his  Wesen  des  Christentums  the  refrain  has 
echoed  in  every  chapel  and  in  all  the  publications  of  the 
evangelical  and  liberal  theological  school.  They  take  it 
for  granted,  of  course,  that  the  "  son  of  God,"  whether 
this  is  meant  in  the  metaphysical  or  merely  in  the 
metaphorical  sense,  must  have  had  a  quite  new  con- 
ception of  God,  throwing  in  the  shade  all  earlier  ideas, 
and  they  talk  themselves  into  an  ecstatic  admiration  of 
Jesus's  conception  of  God.  Yet  the  idea  of  God  the 
Father  is  common  to  all  religions ;  and  it  is  sheer  theo- 
logical prejudice  to  say  that,  when  a  Greek  prayed  to 
"  Father  Zeus  "  or  a  German  to  "  All-father  Odin,"  there 
was  no  corresponding  sentiment  in  his  soul,  and  his  piety 
was  not  coloured  by  a  childlike  trust  in  the  goodness,  the 
surpassing  wisdom,  and  the  power  of  God  conceived  as  a 
father.1  Long  before  the  time  of  Jesus  the  idea  of  God 
as  the  Father  was  quite  common  among  the  Jews. 
Wendt,  in  his  System  der  christlichen  Lehre  (1906), 
counts  no  less  than  twenty-three  passages  in  the  Old 
Testament  in  which  God  is  conceived  as  Father  in  just 
the  same  sense  as  we  find  in  Jesus.2  Isaiah  exclaims,  for 
instance  (Ixiii,  16  ;  Ixiv,  7)  :  "  Doubtless  thou  art  our 

father thou,  0  Lord,  art  our  father,  our  redeemer." 

It  may  be  urged  that  the  Jewish  Jahveh  is  a  stern 
God,  who  visits  the  sins  of  the  fathers  on  the  children 
down  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation  (Exodus  xxxiv,  7) . 
But  we  also  read  in  the  Old  Testament :  "  The  fathers 
shall  not  be  put  to  death  for  the  children,  neither  shall 
the  children  be  put  to  death  for  the  fathers  "  (Deut. 
xxiv,  16) ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  idea  of  God  as  a 
stern,  punishing  father  is  not  foreign  to  Jesus.  And 
where  shall  we  find  in  the  words  of  Jesus  a  finer  utter- 
ance on  God  than  this :  "  The  Lord  God,  merciful  and 

1  See  A.  Dieterich,  Mithrasliturgie  (1903),  p.  141. 
a  Cf.  Exodits  xxxiv,  6 ;  Deut.  viii,  5  ;  xxxii,  6 ;  Sir.  xxiii,  1 ;  Ps.  ciii ; 
Wisdom  ii,  16,  etc. 


264  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

gracious,  long-suffering,  and  abundant  in  goodness  and 
truth,  keeping  mercy  for  thousands,  forgiving  iniquity 
and  transgression  and  sin  "  (Exodus  xxxiv,  6  and  7)  ?  Or 
where  shall  we  find  more  fervent  thanksgiving  for  God's 
fatherly  goodness  and  mercy  than  in  the  psalmist 
(Psalm  ciii)  ? — 

Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul ;  and  all  that  is  within  me, 
bless  his  holy  name. 

Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul ;  and  forget  not  all  his 
benefits ; 

Who  forgiveth  all  thine  iniquities ;  who  healeth  all  thy 
diseases  ; 

Who  redeemeth  thy  life  from  destruction  ;  who  crowneth 
thee  with  loving-kindness  and  tender  mercies ; 

Who  satisfieth  thy  mouth  with  good  things 

The  Lord  is  merciful  and  gracious,  slow  to  anger,  and 
plenteous  in  mercy. 

He  will  not  always  chide;  neither  will  he  keep  his 
anger  for  ever. 

He  hath  not  dealt  with  us  after  our  sins,  nor  rewarded 
us  according  to  our  iniquities 

Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth 
them  that  fear  him. 

For  he  knoweth  our  frame ;  he  remembereth  that  we 
are  dust. 

As  for  man,  his  days  are  as  grass ;  as  a  flower  of  the 
field,  so  he  flourisheth. 

For  the  wind  passeth  over  it,  and  it  is  gone ;  and  the 
place  thereof  shall  know  it  no  more. 

But  the  mercy  of  the  Lord  is  from  everlasting  to  ever- 
lasting upon  them  that  fear  him,  and  his  righteousness 
unto  children's  children. 

As  regards  the  relation  of  God  the  Father  to  the 
individual  soul,  this  "  religious  individualism,"  as  it  is 
called,  is  not  peculiar  to  Jesus  or  Christianity,  but  a 
fundamental  feature  of  all  deeper  religions,  and  especially 
of  the  mystery-cults.  In  all  of  them  the  individual 
sought  to  enter  into  a  direct  personal  relation  to  the  deity, 
and  the  subjective  feeling  of  the  presence  of  God  in  them 
was  not  less  strong  and  deep  than  in  the  case  of  Jesus. 

In  point  of  fact  the  God  of  Jesus  is  merely  the  God  of 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  265 

the  Old  Testament,  the  one  God  of  Israel  (Mark  xii,  29), 
the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  (Matthew  xxii,  32). 
Jesus  himself,  as  described  in  the  gospels,  is  so  little  con- 
scious of  teaching  anything  new  in  this  respect  that  he 
makes  no  claim  to  do  so.  Wrede  destroyed  the  theo- 
logical legend  that  Jesus  had  taught  a  new  and  deeper 
conception  of  God.1  Even  Wendt,  when  he  does  attempt 
to  define  the  difference  between  the  God  of  Jesus  and  the 
God  of  Judaism,  has  at  length  to  confess  the  truth,  and 
admit,  in  regard  to  the  idea  of  God  the  Father :  "  Jesus 
was  not  the  first  to  strike  this  note ;  it  was  heard  before 
his  time  both  in  the  Jewish  and  Greek  religious  worlds." 
It  is  true  that  he  adds  that  the  belief  in  God  the  Father 
had  never  before  been  "  conceived  with  such  confidence 
and  plainness,  such  power  and  exclusiveness,  as  here,  and 
never  brought  into  such  definite  relation  to  the  personal 
life  "  (p.  25) ;  but  K.  Griitzmacher  has  rightly  charac- 
terised these  as  "  statements  which,  apart  from  their  really 
great  modesty  as  a  description  of  something  new  and 
epoch-making,  which  Christianity  is  supposed  to  have 
introduced  into  the  religious  history  of  mankind,  are  not 
capable  of  proof."2 

The  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  is  the  common  God  of 
the  Jews.  "  Not  a  sparrow  shall  fall  on  the  ground 
without  your  Father,"  says  Jesus  in  Matthew  (x,  29) ;  and 
he  adds  :  "  The  very  hairs  of  your  head  are  all  numbered." 
We  read  the  same  in  the  book  of  Job  :  "  Doth  not  he  see 
my  ways  and  count  all  my  steps?"  (xxxi,  4).  "  Without 
the  will  of  God  no  bird  falls  from  heaven,"  says  the 
Talmud ;  "  how  much  the  less  shall  danger  threaten  a 
man's  life,  unless  the  creator  himself  make  it?"'  And  it 
is  the  same  in  Pesikta  (fol.  18,  col.  4)  :  "  Do  I  not  number 
every  hair  of  every  creature?"  "No  man  strikes  here 
below  with  his  finger  but  it  is  known  above  "  (Chulin,  7). 

Much  stress  has  been  laid  on  the  fact  that  Jesus  does 

1  Paulus,  p.  91.  2  Gegen  den  religiosen  Riickschritt  (1910),  p.  4. 

3  Bereschit  rabba,  79,  fol.  77,  col.  4. 


266  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

not  speak  of  God  in  general  as  the  father  of  all  men,  but 
specifically  as  his  father.  But  in  Mark*(vni,  38;  xiii,  32) 
Jesus  calls  God  not  so  much  his  father  as  the  father  of 
the  Christ.  It  is  only  in  Matthew  and  Luke  that  we  find 
that  intimacy  and  familiarity  in  the  words  of  Jesus 
respecting  his  relation  to  God,  and  in  John  it  assumes  a 
thoroughly  mystical  character.1  But  that  he  calls  God 
his  father  is,  as  we  saw,  an  expression  taken  from  the 
book  of  Wisdom,  where  the  wicked  hate  the  "  just," 
because  he  speaks  of  God  as  "  his  father  "  (ii,  16). 

(e)  Love  of  Neighbours  and  of  Enemies. — We  cannot, 
therefore,  find  in  their  conception  of  God  the  extra- 
ordinary feature  that  would  justify  us  in  ascribing  the 
words  of  the  gospels  to  so  extraordinary  a  man  as  Jesus. 
Is  it  in  their  ethical  ideas  ? 

According  to  Mark  (xii,  29),  Jesus  answers  the  scribe 
who  asks  him  which  is  the  chief  commandment :  "  Hear, 
0  Israel ;  The  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord  :  and  thou  shalt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all 
thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with  all  thy  strength ; 
this  is  the  first  commandment.  And  the  second  is  like — 
namely,  this :  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself." 
The  words  are  found  in  Deut.  vi,  4,  and  Levit.  xix,  18. 
Jesus  himself  is  well  aware  that  in  this  he  is  not  express- 
ing any  new  idea.  The  way  in  which  the  scribe  at  once 
agrees  with  him  shows  that  he  is  only  putting  a  common 
opinion,  and  this  is  shown  also  by  the  parallel  passage, 
Luke  x,  25,  where  Jesus  makes  the  scribe  quote  the 
words  as  a  commonplace  of  the  law.  In  Matthew  xxii,  40, 
Jesus  adds :  "  On  these  two  commandments  hang  all 
the  law  and  the  prophets."  Further,  we  read  in  Tobias 
iv,  16 :  "  What  thou  dost  not  wish  any  man  to  do  unto 
thee  do  thou  not  unto  another";  and  we  find  the  saying 
in  the  same  negative  form  in  the  Talmud :  "  A  heathen 
came  to  Hillel  and  said  to  him :  I  will  embrace  Judaism 

1  Ernest  Havet,  Le  Christianisme  et  ses  origines  (1884),  iv,  p.  37. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  267 

on  condition  that  thou  teachest  me  the  whole  doctrine 
during  the  time  that  I  stand  on  one  leg.  And  Hillel 
said  :  What  thou  dost  not  like  do  not  to  thy  neighbour ; 
that  is  the  whole  doctrine.  All  the  rest  is  only  explana- 
tion; go  thou  and  learn."1  If  this  is  supposed  to  be  less 
than  Jesus  demands,  we  must  remember  that  the  maxim  is 
in  a  negative  form  in  the  older  editions  of  the  gospels.  In 
this  respect,  therefore,  the  "  love  "  which  Jesus  demands 
is  merely  the  Old  Testament  love  of  one's  neighbour. 

In  Matthew  v,  43,  however,  it  is  said :  "  Ye  have 
heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bour, and  hate  thine  enemy.  But  I  say  unto  you,  Love 
your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them 
that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  which  despitefully  use 
you  and  persecute  you."  Here  the  love  of  one's  neigh- 
bour seems  to  be  elevated  into  a  command  to  love  one's 
enemies.  Weiss  is  astonished  that  I  have  "overlooked 
this,  and  so  many  other  things"  (p.  166).  I  should  have 
thought  that  Christian  apologists  would  have  been  better 
advised  not  to  touch  the  point.  If  Jesus  really  spoke 
these  words,  he  betrayed  an  astonishing  ignorance  of  the 
Mosaic  law.  Where  is  it  written  that  the  Jews  must 
hate  their  enemies  ?  In  Levit.  xix,  18,  where  the  love  of 
one's  neighbour  is  prescribed,  it  is  expressly  said :  "  Thou 
shalt  not  avenge,  nor  bear  any  grudge  against  the  children 
of  thy  people,"  and  "  Thou  shalt  not  hate  thy  brother 
in  thine  heart ;  thou  shalt  not  in  any  wise  rebuke  thy 
neighbour,  and  not  suffer  sin  upon  him  [thou  shalt 
freely  call  thy  neighbour  to  account,  that  thou  bear  no 
sin  on  his  account] ."  Not  only  towards  their  own  people, 
but  even  towards  strangers,  the  Jews  must  not  be  without 
love :  "  Thou  shalt  not  oppress  a  stranger ;  for  ye  know 
the  heart  of  a  stranger,  seeing  that  ye  were  strangers  in 
the  land  of  Egypt "  (Exodus  xxiii,  9),  and  "  The  stranger 
that  dwelleth  with  you  shall  be  unto  you  as  one  born 

1  Tract.  Schabboth,  31a. 


268  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

among  you,  and  thou  shalt  love  him  as  thyself  "  (Levit. 
xix,  34).  Even  the  love  of  enemies  is  commanded  in  the 
law :  "  If  thou  meet  thine  enemy's  ox  or  his  ass  going 
astray,  thou  shalt  surely  bring  it  back  to  him  again.  If 
thou  see  the  ass  of  him  that  hateth  thee  lying  under  his 
burden,  and  wouldest  forbear  to  help  him,  thou  shalt 
surely  help  with  him  "  (Exodus  xxiii,  4  and  5).  "  Kejoice 
not,"  says  Proverbs  (xxiv,  17),  "when  thine  enemy 
falleth,  and  let  not  thine  heart  be  glad  when  he 
stumbleth."  "If  thine  enemy  be  hungry,  give  him 
bread  to  eat ;  and  if  he  be  thirsty,  give  him  water  to 
drink ;  for  thou  shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  upon  his  head, 
and  the  Lord  shall  reward  thee"  (xxv,  21  and  22).  In 
Job  it  is  represented  as  a  crime  against  God  to  rejoice 
over  the  misfortune  of  one's  enemy  (xxxi,  29),  and  the 
psalmist  boasts  of  having  saved  one  who  had  been  his 
enemy  without  cause  (vii,  5).  "  Say  not  thou,  I  will 
recompense  evil,"  it  is  said  in  Proverbs  (xx,  22);  "  but 
wait  on  the  Lord,  and  he  shall  save  thee."  "  Let  them 
curse,  but  bless  thou,"  says  the  psalmist  (cix,  28).  And 
Jesus  Sirach  says  :  "  Forgive  thy  neighbour  the  injury  he 
has  done  thee ;  then  will  thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee  when 
thou  prayest"  (xxviii,  1). 

Not  only  the  Old  Testament  but  the  Talmud  is  full  of 
demands  of  love  of  one's  enemies  and  examples  of  good 
feeling  towards  opponents.  "  Thou  shalt  not  hate,  not 
even  internally"  (Menachot,  18).  "Love  him  that 
punisheth  thee"  (Derech  Erez  Sutha,c.9).  "How  is 
it  possible  for  one  that  fears  God  to  hate  a  man  and 
regard  him  as  an  enemy?"  (Pessachim,  113).  A  rabbi 
used,  before  he  went  to  bed,  to  forgive  all  who  had 
injured  him  during  the  day.  Another,  Rabbi  Josua, 
wished  to  bring  the  divine  judgment  upon  a  heretic  who 
tormented  him,  but  went  to  sleep,  and  when  he  awoke 
reflected :  This  sleep  was  a  warning  that  the  just  should 
never  call  the  punishment  of  God  on  the  guilty  (Berachot, 
76,  also  10a).  "  When,"  says  the  Talmud  (Sanhedrim, 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  269 

396),  "the  angels  wished  to  sing  a  chant  of  joy  because 
the  Egyptians  were  destroyed  in  the  sea,  God  said  to 
them:  My  creatures  are  drowned,  and  would  ye  sing?" 
Finally  Job  says  (xxxi,  13) :  "If  I  did  despise  the  cause 
of  my  manservant  or  of  my  maidservant,  when  they 
contended  with  me;  what  then  shall  I  do  when  God 

riseth  up  ? Did  not  he  that  made  me  in  the  womb 

make  him  ?  and  did  not  one  fashion  us  in  the  womb?" 

The  Talmud  by  no  means  restricts  this  love  of  one's 
enemies  to  members  of  one's  own  people.  As  man  is 
bidden  to  pray  to  God  for  sinners  (Sohar  to  Genesis, 
fol.  67),  so  God  says  to  Moses:  "Israelite  or  Gentile, 
man  or  woman,  slave  or  free,  all  are  alike  for  you" 
(Jalkut,  c.  206).  In  accordance  with  this,  and  in  agree- 
ment with  Levit.  xix,  9,  the  Talmud  commands  them 
not  to  prevent  the  Gentile  poor  from  gleaning  in  the 
fields  (Gittin,  c.  5),  and  repeatedly  represents  Abraham 
the  Israelite  as  a  model  of  tolerance.  The  best  is, 
however,  that  the  words  of  Jesus,  "  Bless  them  that 
curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you,"  are  not  found 
at  all  in  the  older  manuscripts  of  the  gospels,  but  are 
found  in  the  Talmud,  where  we  read  :  "  It  is  better  to  be 
wronged  by  others  than  to  wrong"  (Sanhedrim,  fol.  48), 
and  "  Be  rather  among  the  persecuted  than  the  perse- 
cutors"  (Baba  mezia,  93).  "  Where  in  the  world,"  asks 
Weiss,  "  is  there  a  Jewish  writing  or  a  Jewish  community 
that  has  ever  made  love  of  one's  enemy  a  fundamental 
rule  of  commerce?  And  wherever  it  has  been  put  in 
practice — whence  came  the  impulse,  who  inspired  men 
thereto?  The  Talmud,  or  the  Old  Testament,  or  the 
figure  of  him  who  sealed  his  word  on  the  cross?"  (p.  165). 
The  answer  is  found  in  the  above. 

It  is  sheer  theological  prejudice  and  perversion  of 
history  to  say  that  Jesus  was  "  the  first  "  to  preach  love 
of  enemies,  that  men  owe  to  his  example  alone  that  love 
of  one's  neighbour  has  become  the  supreme  principle  of 
moral  conduct,  as  Weinel  claims.  As  if  the  Stoics  had 


270  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

not  preached  universal  love  of  mankind  long  before  the 
time  of  Jesus ;  not  merely  as  a  passive  endurance,  but  as 
an  active  interest  in  the  lot  of  others  and  disinterested 
helpfulness  on  the  basis  of  descent  from  a  common 
divine  Father  and  as  members  of  a  common  humanity ! 
As  if  Jesus  had  not  violated  his  own  command  in  his 
conduct  towards  the  Canaanite  woman  (Mark  vii,  27),  his 
refusal  to  allow  the  disciples  to  go  and  preach  the  gospel 
to  the  Gentiles  and  the  Samaritans  (Matthew  x,  5),  his 
curse  of  the  places  that  would  not  be  converted,  and  his 
anger  against  the  Pharisees  and  scribes  on  account  of 
their  opposition  to  him !  It  is  an  empty  theological 
phrase  to  say  that  Jesus  "  raised  the  altruistic  ideal  to  a 
pitch  of  supreme  intimacy  "  and  "  destroyed  in  principle 
the  barriers  between  peoples  and  sects";1  it  is  anything 
but  the  outcome  of  candid  religious-scientific  inquiry — it 
is  a  resolute  closing  of  one's  eyes  to  the  facts  to  exalt 
Jesus,  in  face  of  the  above  quotations  from  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  Talmud,  for  a  merit  which  does  not 
belong  to  him,  but  to  them,  and  to  maintain  the  fiction 
that  love  of  enemies  was  made  a  "  fundamental  rule  of 
trade  "  by  Jesus  in  any  higher  sense  than  we  find  in  the 
rest  of  Judaism.  As  long  as  theologians  continue  to 
praise  the  moral  maxims  of  Jesus  in  this  way  at  the 
expense  of  non-Christian  ethics,  we  must  decline  to 
regard  their  efforts  as  impartial,  in  spite  of  that  claim  of 
"  honourableness "  which  they  repeat  so  pitifully,  and 
however  proudly  they  may  wrap  themselves  in  the 


1  "Jesus  by  no  means  'discovered'  altruism  in  ethics.  Hellenistic 
moralists  urged  altruism  long  before  the  birth  of  Jesus.  If  the  ethic  of 
Jesus  seems  particularly  altruistic,  this  is  due,  apart  from  theological 
suggestion,  to  the  fact  that  the  altruistic  maxims  of  Jesus  may  seem  less 
restricted  and  more  impressive  than  in  the  case  of  the  Greeks,  because  the 
scientific  capacity,  and  therefore  the  scientific  control  of  a  new  ethic, 
were  slighter  in  the  case  of  the  Jews  and  Jesus  than  among  the  Greeks  and 
their  leading  thinkers"  (Schneider,  p.  476).  We  may  add  that,  when 
religious  education  and  the  Church  do  all  they  can  to  impress  on  the 
people  this  false  view  of  the  ethic  of  Jesus,  they  rely  not  only  on  the 
thoughtlessness  of  the  masses,  but  on  the  fact  that  very  few  know  any- 
thing about  Greek  or  Hindoo  philosophy  and  religion. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  271 

mantle  of  their  scientific  infallibility.  We  do  not 
question  their  subjective  honour,  but  we  do  question  their 
ability,  in  their  atmosphere  of  theological  hypnotism,  to 
see  things  as  they  really  are.  And  if  they  grant  that 
the  precept  of  love  of  enemies  has  in  it  nothing  peculiarly 
characteristic  of  Jesus,  there  is  an  end  of  the  proof  of 
"  uniqueness "  that  was  based  on  it,  and  the  historical 
reality  of  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels  falls  to  the  ground. 

(/)  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount. — Careful  inquiry  shows 
that  the  remaining  moral  precepts  and  edifying  sayings  of 
Jesus  have  no  more  title  to  originality  than  the  command 
to  love  one's  neighbours  and  enemies.  Take  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  for  instance,  which  is  wanting  in  Mark, 
and  was  certainly  never  delivered  in  the  form  in  which 
we  have  it ;  this  collection  of  the  quintessence  of  the 
ethical  teaching  of  Jesus  is  a  "mere  compilation  of 
existing  Jewish  literature,"  and  does  not  contain  a  single 
idea  that  we  do  not  otherwise  find  in  Jewish  proverbial 
literature.  Robertson,  following  Rodriguez  (Les  origines 
du  Sermon  de  la  Montague,  1868),  has  given  in  his 
Christianity  and  Mythology  a  whole  series  of  parallels; 
and  from  the  work  of  the  Rabbi  Dr.  Emanuel  Schreiber, 
Die  Prinzipien  des  Judentums,  verglichen  mit  denen  des 
Christentums  (1877),  it  will  be  seen  that  the  number  of 
coincidences,  not  merely  with  the  Talmud,  is  incalculable.1 

"  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  king- 
dom of  heaven,"  Jesus  begins  the  Sermon ;  and  the 
psalmist  (cxvi,  6)  says :  "  The  Lord  preserveth  the 
simple ;  I  was  brought  low,  and  he  helped  me."  "  Blessed 
are  they  that  mourn,  for  they  shall  be  comforted,"  is  the 
next  sentence ;  and  Isaiah  says  (Ixvi,  13),  "As  one  whom 
his  mother  comforteth,  so  will  I  comfort  you,"  to  those 
who  mourn  the  loss  of  their  country,  and  announces  to 
them  the  glorious  fulfilment  of  the  divine  promises. 

1  See  also  Nork,  Rabbinische  Quellen  und  Parallelen  zu  neutestamentl. 
Schriftstellen  (1839) ;  T.  Eschelbacher,  Das  Judentum  mid  das  Wesen  des 
Christentums,  1908. 


272  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

"  Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth," 
is  the  third  maxim;  and  Isaiah  says  (Ivii,  15) :  "  I  dwell 
in  the  high  and  holy  place,  with  him  also  that  is  of  a 
contrite  and  humble  spirit,  to  revive  the  spirit  of  the 
humble,  and  to  revive  the  heart  of  the  contrite  ones." 
"A  man's  pride  shall  bring  him  low,"  says  Proverbs 
(xxix,  23),  "  but  honour  shall  uphold  the  humble  in 
spirit."  "My  son,"  says  Ecclesiasticus  (iii,  17),  "do 
thy  work  in  humility ;  the  greater  thou  art  do  thou  the 
more  humble  thyself,  and  thou  shalt  find  favour  in  the 
eyes  of  the  Lord."  Eabbi  Jochanan  says :  "  When  a 
man  has  acquired  meekness,  then  will  he  also  acquire 
honour,  wealth,  and  wisdom  "  (Midrash  Jalkut  Mischle, 
22)  ;  and  the  psalmist  says  (xxxvii,  11)  :  "  But  the  meek 
shall  inherit  the  earth,  and  shall  delight  themselves  in  the 
abundance  of  peace." 

"  Blessed  are  they  which  do  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness,"  Jesus  continues,  "for  they  shall  be  filled." 
"  He  that  walketh  righteously  and  speaketh  uprightly," 
says  Isaiah  (xxxiii,  15),  "  shall  dwell  on  high  ";  and  the 
Talmud  says  :  "  Any  age  in  which  the  doctrine  is  not 
found — that  is  to  say,  in  which  a  righteous  life,  conform- 
able to  the  law,  is  not  possible — lives  in  hunger  "  (Schemot 
rabba,  cap.  31 ;  see  also  Psalm  cxviii,  19) .  In  Proverbs 
we  read  (xxi,  21)  :  "  He  that  followeth  after  righteousness 
and  mercy  findeth  life,  righteousness,  and  honour."  This 
also  agrees  in  substance  with  the  fifth  beatitude  :  "  Blessed 
are  the  merciful,  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy."  Pity  and 
sympathy,  even  for  animals,  are  urged  and  praised  both 
in  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Talmud.1  "  Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God,"  is  the  sixth 
beatitude.  "  Who  shall  ascend  into  the  hill  of  the 
Lord?  "  says  the  psalmist  (xxiv,  3),  "or  who  shall  stand 
in  his  holy  place  ?  He  that  hath  clean  hands  and  a  pure 
heart."  "Blessed  are  the  peacemakers,  for  they  shall  be 

1  Deut.  xxv,  4  ;  xxii,  6  and  10. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  273 

called  the  children  of  God."  But  the  psalmist  also 
exclaims  (xxxiv,  14)  :  "  Seek  peace,  and  pursue  it." 
Indeed,  peace  is  lifted  to  so  lofty  a  position  by  the 
Talmudists  that  they  call  the  Messiah  himself  "  peace," 
and  Isaiah  has  described  him  as  above  all  a  bringer  and 
prince  of  peace.  Finally,  the  eighth  beatitude,  "  Blessed 
are  they  which  are  persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake,  for 
theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  has  an  echo  in  the 
Talmud :  "  They  who  are  persecuted  and  persecute  not, 
who  sustain  ridicule  and  injury  and  themselves  do  no 
injury,  are  the  elect  of  God,  of  whom  it  is  said :  They 
shine  like  the  sun"  (Schabbeth,  886).  We  have  already 
seen,  moreover,  that  persecution  because  of  their  righteous- 
ness is  a  mark  of  the  good  in  the  book  of  Wisdom,  and 
secures  heaven  for  them. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  other  details  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  It  contains,  as  we  said,  nothing 
whatever  beyond  the  common  Jewish  ethic,  in  spite  of 
the  trouble  the  Evangelists  have  taken  to  set  up  an 
artificial  contrast  between  the  ethic  of  Jesus  and  the 
Jewish  morality  of  the  time,  and  the  effort  of  Christian 
theologians  to  obscure  the  real  relation  of  the  Christian  to 
the  Jewish  ethic.  Thus  the  prohibition  of  anger  against 
one's  brother  (Matthew  v,  22)  is  from  Lev.  xix,  17.1  The 
maxim  that  merely  to  look  upon  another's  wife  is  equal  to 
adultery  (Matthew  v,  28)  is  covered  by  Job  xxxi,  1,  and 
Ecclus.  ix,  5  and  8,  and  similar  strict  maxims  in  the 
Talmud,  such  as :  "  Whoever  regards  even  the  little  finger 
of  a  woman  has  already  violated  matrimony  in  his  heart " 
(Bereschit,  24  and  24a).  When  Jesus  insists  on  purity 
and  goodness  of  heart  before  a  man  approaches  the  altar 
to  offer  sacrifice  (Matthew  v,  23),  he  is  merely  following 
Isaiah  and  the  other  prophets  who  place  piety  of  heart 
above  the  external  piety  of  sacrifices  and  good  works.2 

1  See  also  Gen.  xlix,  7 ;  Prov.  xii,  16,  and  xiv,  16. 

2  Isaiah  i,  11 ;  Jer.  vi,  20 ;  vii,  22  ;  Hosea  vi,  6  ;  Amos  v,  22 ;  Micah 
vi,  6  ;  Mai.  i,  10 ;  Eccles.  vii,  9,  etc. 

T 


274  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

Indeed,  it  seems  that  the  much-quoted  maxim,  that  one 
must  not  resist  evil,  but  present  the  other  cheek  to  the 
smiter  (Matthew  v,  39),  can  be  traced  to  Isaiah  1,  6,  and 
the  description  of  the  servant  of  God,  who  presents  his 
back  to  those  who  beat  him  and  his  cheeks  to  those  who 
plucked  the  hair.  There  is,  moreover,  a  famous  Jewish 
proverb  :  "If  any  demand  thy  ass,  give  him  the  saddle 
also"  (Baba  Jcama,  27). 

Again,  the  advice  as  to  almsgiving,  doing  good  in  secret 
(Matthew  vi,  1-4),  praying  and  fasting  (5),  and  forgiving 
injuries  (14)  is  founded  on  Jewish  teaching,  and  is  echoed  in 
similar  maxims  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Talmud. 
Isaiah  demands  an  inward,  not  an  external,  fast  (Iviii) .  The 
preacher  bids  his  readers  avoid  many  words  in  praying 
(v,  1  ;  see  also  Ecclesiasticus  vii,  14).  As  to  the  "Lord's 
Prayer,"  not  only  are  the  several  phrases  contained  in  the 
Old  Testament1  and  in  the  Talmud,  but  it  is  certain  that 
it  was  not  uttered  by  Jesus  in  its  present  form.2  The 
warning  against  the  accumulation  of  earthly  treasures 
and  against  the  dangers  of  wealth  (Matthew  vi,  19),  and 
the  counsel  to  look  first  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  are  quite 
in  accord  with  the  prophets  (Ecclesus.  xxvii,  1,  xxxi,  3  ; 
Eccles.  v,  9,  xii).  The  saying,  "Judge  not,  that  ye  be 
not  judged"  (Matthew  vii,  1),  runs  in  the  Talmud: 
"  Judge  everyone  as  favourably  as  possible  "  (Abot,  i,  6), 
and  "  Judge  not  thy  neighbour  until  thou  hast  stood  in 
his  place"  (Abot,  ii,  4),  and  "  With  the  measure  with 
which  a  man  measures  shall  it  be  meted  unto  him  " 
(Sota,  86).  The  saying  about  the  beam  and  the  mote 
(Matthew  vii,  4)  is  found  word  for  word  in  the  Talmud 
(Baba  bathra,  15),  and  runs,  in  the  mouth  of  the  Kabbi 
Nathan  :  "  The  fault  from  which  thou  art  not  free  blame 


1  See,  for  instance,  EcclesiasticiLS  xxviii,  2. 

2  See   Robertson,   p.  450,  and   the  above   note  concerning  the  Lord's 
Prayer.     It  is  quite  unintelligible  to  me  how,  in  face  of  this  plain  fact, 
a  Jewish  rabbi  like  Klein  can  say  :  "  Students  of  the  evolution  of  religion 
have  not  as  yet  made  any  attempt  to  bring  forward  parallels  to  this  unique(!) 
prayer.     It  is  the  most  personal  thing  that  we  have  of  Jesus"  (p.  34). 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  275 

not  in  another  "  (Baba  mezia,  59).  The  sentence,  "  Ask, 
and  it  shall  be  given  to  you ;  seek,  and  ye  shall  find  ; 
knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you,"  corresponds  to 
the  words  of  the  prophet  Jeremiah  (xxix,  13)  :  "  And  ye 
shall  seek  me,  and  find  me,  when  ye  shall  search  for  me 
with  all  your  heart,"  and  to  "  The  doors  of  prayer  are 
never  closed"  of  the  Talmud  (Sota,  49).  Jeremiah,  like 
Jesus,  warns  against  false  prophets,  and  urges  to  true 
repentance  and  good  deeds. 

In  view  of  all  this  one  does  not  see  why  the  people 
should  be  "  astonished  "  at  the  teaching  of  Jesus  (Matthew 
vii,  28),  since  all  the  moral  principles  which  the  Evangelists 
put  in  the  so-called  Sermon  on  the  Mount  had  long  been, 
as  Renan  says,  "  the  small  change  of  the  synagogues." 
Perhaps  it  will  be  suggested  that  the  finest  sayings  of 
Jesus  which  are  also  found  in  the  Talmud  have  been  taken 
by  the  latter  from  the  gospels.  But  at  the  time  of  the 
compilation  of  the  Talmud  the  mutual  hatred  of  the  two 
parties  was  so  great  that  a  pious  Jew  would  quite  certainly 
not  have  admitted  into  his  collection  sayings  which  he 
knew  to  be  represented  by  the  Christians  as  the  "  words 
of  Jesus."  If  it  were  done  unwittingly,  it  would  only 
show  how  slight  the  difference  was  from  the  first  between 
the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  morality ;  and  it  would  be 
difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  Christians  had 
taken  their  "  words  of  Jesus "  from  the  common  pro- 
verbial wisdom  of  the  Jews. 

Naturally,  it  was  only  the  best  in  the  available  literature 
that  seemed  to  the  Christians  good  enough  to  be  put  in 
the  mouth  of  Jesus.  We  are,  of  course,  dealing  with  a 
"  spiritualised  and  intimate  Judaism,"  a  philosophy  of 
life  and  deity  that  had,  among  the  dispersed  Jews,  been 
permeated  by  the  finer  thought  and  feeling  of  the  Greek 
spirit.  Anyone  who  doubts  the  possibility  of  this  must 
have  in  mind  only  the  description  of  Judaism  in  the  pages 
of  the  gospels  themselves,  and  take  it  to  be  an  historical 
fact  that  Judaism  was  in  the  time  of  Jesus  as  fossilised 


276  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

and  spiritless  as  it  is  described  in  the  gospels.  Such  an 
assumption  is  a  sheer  petitio  principii,  and  runs  counter 
to  the  familiar  experience  that,  when  the  religious  leaders 
of  a  people  lapse  into  formalism,  the  stream  of  inner 
religious  life  runs  freely  in  other  channels,  and  may 
produce  new  and  remarkable  phenomena.  Kemember 
the  ancient  mystics  in  the  time  of  the  scholastics  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  or  the  pietists  during  the  predominance  of 
the  driest  theological  rationalism. 

It  is  usually  among  the  laity,  the  secret  sects  and  con- 
venticles, that  the  religious  life  pulses  all  the  more 
vigorously  and  becomes  all  the  deeper  in  proportion  to 
the  formalism  of  the  official  religion.  Certainly,  in 
contrast  to  the  spirit  of  the  Pharisees  and  scribes  about 
the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  it  is  a  "  new  spirit " 
that  lives  in  the  Jesus-sect,  and  finds  expression  in  the 
words  and  ideas  which  Jesus  is  supposed  to  have  uttered. 
But  it  is  not  a  new  spirit  in  the  creative  sense,  since  all 
that  it  contains  of  moral  value  has  been  derived  from  the 
great  fund  of  Jewish  proverbial  wisdom,  not  produced  by 
itself.  They  are  the  ideals  of  men  who,  no  one  knows 
how  long  before,  had  brooded  over  the  writings  of  the 
prophets,  especially  Isaiah,  lit  the  fire  of  the  inner 
religious  world  from  the  plain  and  penetrating  piety  of 
the  psalms  and  proverbs,  absorbed  their  spirit,  and  never 
ceased  to  remain  in  continuous  contact  with  the  "  ever- 
living  in  the  Scriptures."  They  could  not,  it  is  true,  have 
transferred  these  finer  flowers  of  Judaism  to  their  own 
garden  if  they  had  not  been  personally  disposed  to  this 
religious  intimacy.  But  that  one  single  personality  gave 
them  this  spirit,  as  theologians  say,  it  is  just  as  super- 
fluous to  suppose  as  in  similar  cases  of  the  rise  of  a 
pietistic  and  mystic  fervour  among  the  laity  by  the  side 
of  the  official  teaching  of  the  sect.  These  first  Christians 
had  not  to  seek  the  pearls — the  true  and  eternal — in  the 
wilderness  of  official  knowledge  of  the  law,  as  they  had 
never  expressly  looked  there  for  them.  And  when  it  is 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  277 

said  that  only  a  quite  exceptional  religious  genius  like 
Jesus  could  have  done  this,  it  is  forgotten  that  the  words 
of  Jesus  which  have  come  down  to  us  were  not  selected  by 
him,  but  by  the  Evangelists,  out  of  tradition ;  since  they 
certainly  represent  only  an  insignificant  part  of  what 
Jesus  could  have  taught. 

Thus  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  the  collapse  of  the  political 
and  national  conditions  of  the  Jewish  religion,  the  in- 
creasingly bitter  antagonism  of  the  legal  piety  of  the 
Pharisees  to  the  Christian  sectaries,  and  their  inner 
conception  of  the  Jewish  faith,  wholly  suffice  to  explain 
not  only  the  outburst  of  Messianic  hope  among  them, 
but  why  the  Christians  precisely  at  this  time — a  time  of 
the  deepest  humiliation  and  trouble — announced  that  the 
Messiah  was  coming  immediately,  and  directed  all  their 
efforts  to  a  preparation  for  his  coming.  All  the  lofty 
moral  maxims  and  promises  on  which  the  community 
had  long  brooded,  and  which  they  may  possibly  have 
gathered  into  a  collection  of  so-called  "  Sayings  of  the 
Lord,"  now  sprang  to  the  lips  of  the  Christians,  in 
contrast  to  the  official  legal  righteousness,  took  the  form 
of  sayings  of  the  expected  Messiah  himself,  of  warnings, 
consolations,  and  promises  given  during  his  earthly  life, 
which  they  regarded  as  a  condition  of  his  coming  again 
in  splendour  as  the  Messiah  ;  and  while  the  vague  image 
of  the  Isaian  servant  of  God  and  Saviour  that  lived  in 
their  hearts,  perhaps  fed  by  visionary  experiences, 
assumed  the  shape  and  features  of  an  historical  Jesus, 
the  word  and  image  blended  involuntarily,  not  con- 
sciously, in  their  inflamed  imaginations  into  an  insepar- 
able unity,  just  as  religious  sects  are  accustomed  to  regard 
the  most  profound  and  important  of  their  rules  and 
customs  as  revelations  of  the  deity  or  of  their  supposed 
founder. 

(g)  Further  Parallel  Passages. — Thus  we  see  that 
from  the  words  of  Jesus  no  proof  can  be  drawn  of  his 
historicity ;  indeed,  even  Weiss  admits  that  it  is  " possible" 


278  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

that  "not  a  single  word  of  Jesus  has  been  preserved,  and 
that  everything  has  been  put  into  his  mouth"  (p.  168). 
We  think  that  we  are  quite  justified  in  assuming  this 
when  we  find  that  it  would  be  hard  to  quote  a  single 
expression  of  Jesus  that  might  not  be  taken  from  the 
Talmud  or  the  Old  Testament.  To  what  even  apparently 
small  details  this  extends  is  seen  in  Matthew  viii,  22 : 
"  Follow  me,  and  let  the  dead  bury  their  dead."  This 
corresponds  to  the  command  in  the  Talmud  to  postpone 
the  burial  of  the  body  of  a  relative  to  reading  in  the  law 
(Megillah,  fol.  3).  In  fact,  the  peculiar  expression  of 
Jesus  can  only  be  understood  when  we  learn  that  the 
godless  living  are  said  in  the  Talmud  to  be  "  dead " 
(Jalkut  Rubeni,  fol.  177,  col.  3).  Even  such  a  saying 
as  that  in  Matthew  x,  40-42,  and  Luke  x,  16,  is  found 
in  the  Talmud :  "  He  who  takes  his  neighbour  into  his 
house  has  the  same  reward  as  if  the  Schechina  [divine 
spirit]  itself  entered  his  house  "  (Shir  hashirim  rabba, 
fol.  13,  col.  3).  "He  who  feeds  one  learned  in  divine 
things  will  be  blessed  by  God  and  men  "  (Sohar  to  Gen., 
fol.  129,  col.  512).  "If  ye  give  ear  to  my  angel,  it  is  as 
if  ye  hearkened  unto  me"  (Schemoth  rabba  Abschn.,  32, 
fol.  131,  col.  3).  "  If  thou  honourest  my  commandments, 
thou  honourest  me ;  if  thou  despisest  them,  thou  despisest 
me  in  them  "  (Tanchuma,  fol.  16,  col.  3). 

Take  such  a  saying  as  that  in  Matthew  x,  35  :  "I  am 
come  to  set  a  man  at  variance  against  his  father,  and  the 
daughter  against  her  mother,  and  the  daughter-in-law 
against  her  mother-in-law,"  and  compare  it  with  Micah 
vii,  6 :  "  For  the  son  dishonoureth  the  father,  the 
daughter  riseth  up  against  her  mother,  the  daughter-in- 
law  against  her  mother-in-law ;  a  man's  enemies  are  the 
men  of  his  own  house."  The  advice  of  Jesus  as  to  the 
method  of  reconciliation  with  a  brother  who  has  offended 
(Matthew  xviii,  15-17)  corresponds  to  the  procedure 
enjoined  by  Joma  (fol.  87,  col.  1),  except  that  in  the  one 
case  it  is  the  injured,  and  in  the  other  the  injurer,  who 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  279 

must  act.  Matthew  xviii,  20 — "  Where  two  or  three  are 
gathered  together  in  my  name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst 
of  them  " — runs  in  the  Talmud :  "  Where  there  are  two 
persons,  and  they  make  not  the  law  the  subject  of  their 
discourse,  is  the  seat  of  the  scoffer  [Ps..  i,  1];  but  where 
the  law  is  the  subject  of  discourse,  there  also  is  the 
Scliechina" — i.e.,  the  spirit  of  God  (Pirke  Aboth,  col.  3). 
Jesus  says  in  Luke  x,  18:  "I  beheld  Satan  as  lightning 
fall  from  heaven."  In  Isaiah  it  is  similarly  said  of 
Babylon  :  "  How  art  thou  fallen  from  heaven,  0  Lucifer, 
son  of  the  morning !  how  art  thou  cut  down  to  the 
ground,  which  didst  weaken  the  nations  !  "  (xiv,  12),  and 
the  context  makes  it  clear  how  easily  the  words  might  be 
applied  to  Satan. 

We  have  previously  shown  how  the  Talmud  agrees  as 
to  the  story  of  the  coin  of  the  taxes  and  the  answer  of 
Jesus  to  the  question  of  the  Pharisees,  whether  it  was 
lawful  to  give  tribute  to  Caesar  or  no.  The  story  of  the 
anointing  of  Jesus  at  Bethany  has  obviously  grown  out 
of  Psalm  xxiii,  5  ("  Thou  preparest  a  table  before  me  in 
the  presence  of  mine  enemies ;  thou  anointest  my  head 
with  oil ;  my  cup  runneth  over  "),  and  Deut.  xv,  11  ("  For 
the  poor  shall  never  cease  out  of  the  land").  The  scene 
in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane  is  provoked  by  Genesis 
xxii,  3  and  5,  where  Abraham  takes  with  him  his  son 
Isaac  and  two  servants,  and  bids  them  wait  and  pray 
while  he  goes  with  Isaac  to  sacrifice  the  boy.  There  is 
also  a  reference  to  the  story  of  Elisha,  when  he  falls 
asleep  under  a  bush  as  he  flies  before  Ahab,  and  is  twice 
awakened  by  an  angel,  who  gives  him  a  loaf  and  a  vessel 
of  water,  and  bids  him  strengthen  himself  for  the  journey. 
It  is  significant  that  we  find  here  the  words  which  occur 
in  the  gospels:  "It  is  enough.  Take  now  my  life, 
Jahveh"  (Mark  xiv,  36  and  41).  Then  there  is  the 
phrase:  "  My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful."  "  Why  art 
thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul  ?  and  why  art  thou  disquieted 
in  me  ?  hope  thou  in  God ;  for  I  shall  yet  praise  him  for 


280  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

the  help  of  his  countenance  ";  so  runs  Psalm  xlii,  5,  in 
accord  with  Mark  xiv,  34.  And  verses  35  and  36  suggest 
Ecclesiasticus  (xxiii,  1  and  4)  :  "  0  Lord,  my  Father  and 
the  author  of  my  life,  let  me  not  fall  through  them  [my 

sins] abandon    me    not    to    the    attack    they   plan 

against  me." 

10.— THE  PAKABLES  OF  JESUS. 

The  parables  come  after  the  phrases  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  as  the  most  important  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus. 
They  are  so  greatly  esteemed,  and  have  such  a  repute  for 
"  uniqueness "  and  unsurpassable  excellence  that  in  the 
opinion  of  many  they  would  suffice  of  themselves  to 
establish  the  authorship  of  Jesus. 

All  these  parables  deal  with  "  the  kingdom  of  heaven," 
the  manner  of  its  spread,  the  way  to  become  worthy  of  it, 
and  the  attitude  which  the  Jews  and  Gentiles  assume  in 
regard  to  the  promise  of  it  in  the  Jesus-cult.  The  con- 
nection with  Isaiah  is  thus  obvious. 

"  Go  and  tell  this  people,"  Jahveh  bids  the  prophet, 
"  Hear  ye  indeed,  but  understand  not ;  and  see  ye  indeed, 
but  perceive  not.  Make  the  heart  of  this  people  fat,  and 
make  their  ears  heavy,  and  shut  their  eyes ;  lest  they  see 
with  their  eyes,  and  hear  with  their  ears,  and  understand 
with  their  heart,  and  convert,  and  be  healed  "  (vi,  9  and  10). 
"  With  stammering  lips  and  another  tongue  will  he  speak 
to  this  people.  To  whom  he  said,  This  is  the  rest  where- 
with ye  may  cause  the  weary  to  rest ;  and  this  is  the 
refreshing;  yet  they  would  not  hear"  (xxviii,  11  and  12). 
These  words  have  had  a  general  influence  on  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  conduct  of  the  Jews  to  Jesus,  but  they  have 
had  the  special  effect  of  causing  the  Evangelists  to  make 
Jesus  speak  in  parables  (Matthew  xiii,  13).  In  this  way 
we  can  understand  the  otherwise  unintelligible  saying  in 
Mark  iv,  12,  that  the  Saviour  speaks  in  parables  to  the 
people  in  order  that  they  may  not  understand  him  and  be 
converted  and  receive  forgiveness  for  their  sins.  There  is 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  281 

simply  question  of  a  quotation  from  Isaiah.  More  than 
elsewhere  we  here  recognise  the  mystery-character  of  the 
original  Christianity  of  the  Jessaeans,  who  thus  reveal 
their  dependence  on  Isaiah.  The  doctrine  is  communi- 
cated in  parables  which  are  unintelligible  to  "outsiders" 
and  are  not  intended  to  be  understood  by  them.  Only 
the  disciples  or  initiated  are  permitted  to  perceive  "  the 
mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  Hence  we  read  in 
Matthew  xiii,  34  and  35  :  "  All  these  things  spake  Jesus 
unto  the  multitude  in  parables;  and  without  a  parable 
spake  he  not  unto  them ;  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which 
was  spoken  by  the  prophet,  saying,  I  will  open  my  mouth 
in  parables ;  I  will  utter  things  which  have  been  kept 
secret  from  the  foundation  of  the  world  "  (Psalm  Ixxviii,  2). 
Mark,  moreover,  says  that  he  explained  all  to  his  disciples 
(iv,  34). 

In  these  circumstances  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  one 
of  the  chief  parables,  that  of  the  sower  (Matthew  xiii,  3  ; 
Luke  viii,  5),  first  among  the  Naassenes,  the  pre-Christian 
Gnostic  sect,  the  close  relation  of  which  to  Christianity 
we  have  already  pointed  out.  In  this  parable,  however, 
we  have,  as  W.  B.  Smith  has  shown  at  length,  a  modifica- 
tion and  adaptation  of  a  much  older  allegory  in  which  the 
Gnostic  teaching  illustrated  the  sowing  by  God  of  the  seed 
springing  from  the  Logos  which  produces  the  world.1  In 
the  case  of  many  other  parables  of  Jesus,  also,  the  source 
can  be  traced,  and  they  are  not  reproduced  as  sayings  of 
Jesus  with  any  great  improvement.  Thus  the  parable  of 
the  merchant  who  exchanges  all  his  goods  for  a  single 
pearl  is  found  in  the  Talmud  (Schabbat,  fol.  119,  col  1), 
and  goes  back  to  Proverbs  viii,  10  :  "  Receive  my  instruc- 
tion, and  not  silver ;  and  knowledge  rather  than  choice 

1  Der  vorchristliche  Jesus  (1906),  pp.  108-135.  Moreover,  we  read  in 
the  first  Epistle  of  Clement :  "  The  sower  went  forth  and  cast  all  his  seed 
on  the  earth.  They  fall  dry  and  naked  on  the  soil,  rot,  and  then  the  care 
of  the  Lord  causes  them  to  rise  again  out  of  their  corruption,  and  from  the 
one  many  are  produced,  and  they  bring  forth  fruit  "  (xxiv,  5).  We  see 
that  the  parable  was  told  in  many  forms.  Which  form  comes  from  Jesus  ? 


282  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

gold.  For  wisdom  is  better  than  rubies ;  and  all  the 
things  that  may  be  desired  are  not  to  be  compared  to  it." 
Even  the  parable  of  the  net,  which  follows  it  in  Matthew, 
seems  to  be  inspired  by  the  same  passage  in  the  Talmud, 
according  to  which  the  pearl  is  lost  in  a  storm,  swallowed 
by  a  fish,  and  recovered  by  the  catching  of  the  fish,  and 
restored  to  its  original  owner,  who  sells  it  and  obtains 
great  wealth. 

We  read  as  follows  in  the  Talmud :  "  God  said  to  man : 
How  great  is  thy  guilt  for  betraying  me  ?  Thou  sinnest 
against  me,  and  I  have  patience  with  thee.  Thy  soul 
comes  daily  to  me,  when  thou  sleepest,  and  renders  its 
account,  and  remains  my  debtor.  Yet  I  give  thee  back 
thy  soul,  which  is  my  property.  So  do  thou  each  evening 
return  his  pledge  to  thy  debtor."  It  is  not  difficult  to 
see  in  this  passage  the  parable  of  the  dishonest  servant 
(Matthew  xviii,  23). 

Again,  we  read  in  the  Talmud :  "To  whom  shall  I 
liken  the  Rabbi  Bon,  son  of  Chaija  ?  To  a  king  that  hath 
hired  labourers,  among  whom  was  one  of  great  power. 
This  man  did  the  king  summon  to  himself,  and  held 
speech  with  him.  And  when  the  night  fell,  the  hired 
labourers  came  to  receive  their  hire.  But  the  king  gave 
to  the  favoured  labourer  the  same  hire  which  he  had 
given  unto  the  others.  Then  they  murmured  and  said : 
We  have  laboured  the  whole  day,  and  this  man  hath 
laboured  but  two  hours,  yet  there  is  given  unto  him  the 
same  wage  that  we  have  received.  And  the  king  sent 
them  away,  saying :  This  man  hath  done  more  in  two 
hours  than  ye  have  done  during  the  whole  of  the  day. 
Even  so  had  the  Rabbi  Bon  done  more  in  the  study  of 
the  law  in  the  twenty-eight  years  of  his  life  than  another 
would  have  done  who  had  lived  an  hundred  years " 
(Berachoth,  fol.  5,  col.  3).  The  parable  is  quite  con- 
sistent and  unassailable.  But  the  Biblical  parallel — the 
parable  of  the  workers  in  the  vineyard — is  clearly  dis- 
tasteful, since  the  king  attempts  to  justify  his  conduct  by 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  283 

a  purely  arbitrary  feeling,  and  regards  his  lack  of  justice 
as  a  virtue  (Matthew  xx,  15).  It  has  not  been  improved 
in  the  mouth  of  Jesus,  where  it  is  made  to  illustrate  the 
theme  that  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  the  last  shall  be 
first,  and  the  first  last;  that  many  are  called,  but  few 
chosen  (xx,  16). 

The  parable  of  the  two  sons  recalls  the  saying  of  the 
Talmud :  "  The  just  promise  little,  but  do  much  "  (Baba 
mezia,  fol.  76,  col.  2).  The  parable  of  the  rebellious 
vine- workers  is  inspired  by  Isaiah  v : 

My  well-beloved  hath  a  vineyard  in  a  very  fruitful  hill. 

And  he  fenced  it,  and  gathered  out  the  stones  thereof, 
and  planted  it  with  the  choicest  vine,  and  built  a  tower  in 

the  midst  of  it and  he  looked  that  it  should  bring  forth 

grapes,  and  it  brought  forth  wild  grapes. 

And  now,  O  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  and  men  of 
Judah,  judge,  I  pray  you,  betwixt  me  and  my  vineyard. 

What  could  have  been  done  more  to  my  vineyard,  that 
I  have  not  done  it  ?  Wherefore,  when  I  looked  that  it 
should  bring  forth  grapes,  brought  it  forth  wild  grapes  ? 

And  now  go  to :  I  will  tell  you  what  I  will  do  to  my 
vineyard.  I  will  take  away  the  hedge  thereof,  and  it  shall 
be  eaten  up  ;  and  break  down  the  wall  thereof,  and  it  shall 
be  trodden  down : 

And  I  will  lay  it  waste For  the  vineyard  of  the 

Lord  of  hosts  is  the  house  of  Israel,  and  the  men  of  Judah 
his  pleasant  plant ;  and  he  looked  for  judgment,  but  behold 
oppression  ;  for  righteousness,  but  behold  a  cry. 

The  parable  of  the  royal  marriage-feast  runs  in  the 
Talmud  :  "  A  king  held  a  great  banquet,  to  which  many 
guests  were  invited.  They  were  requested  to  bathe, 
anoint  themselves,  and  put  on  their  festive  garments,  in 
order  to  appear  worthily  before  the  king.  But  the  hour 
of  the  banquet  was  not  definitely  fixed.  The  more  shrewd 
were  seen  walking  up  and  down  before  the  door  of  the 
palace  about  the  ninth  hour  of  the  day,  awaiting  the 
moment  when  they  should  be  permitted  to  enter.  The 
more  short-sighted  thought  otherwise,  and  each  one  went 
about  his  business,  as  on  other  days.  Suddenly  the 
summons  was  sent  forth  that  those  who  were  invited 


284  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

should  come  to  the  king's  table.  Then  the  former  came  in 
splendid  garments,  but  the  others  in  their  soiled  workday- 
clothes,  on  account  of  the  haste  of  the  summons.  The  king 
looked  with  friendly  eye  on  those  who  had  shown  themselves 
prepared  at  his  invitation ;  but  the  others,  who  had  paid 
less  regard  to  the  king's  command  and  had  entered  the 
palace  in  unfitting  garments,  had  to  receive  as  their 
reward  the  displeasure  of  the  king.  Those  who  were 
successful  had  a  place  at  the  royal  table ;  the  unsuccessful 
had  to  witness  this,  and  had  in  addition  to  undergo  severe 
punishment."1  The  parable  is  not  very  happy,  on  account 
of  its  many  improbabilities ;  but  in  the  New  Testament 
it  is  altogether  absurd.  The  invitation  to  a  banquet 
already  prepared ;  the  reluctance  of  the  guests  to  go  to 
the  marriage-feast,  so  that  they  even  kill  some  of  the 
servants ;  the  blind  fury  of  the  king,  who  burns  the  town 
in  revenge ;  his  anger  against  one  who  is  brought  in  from 
the  road  because  he  has  not  on  the  wedding-garment, 
and  the  terrible  punishment  inflicted  on  him — all  this  is 
so  unnatural,  grotesque,  and  ridiculous  that  it  can  only 
be  pronounced  a  complete  perversion  of  the  Talmud 
original. 

The  parable  of  the  ten  virgins  (Matthew  xxv,  1),  which 
embodies  the  same  ideas,  is  no  better.  Ten  maidens 
going  out  to  meet  a  bridegroom  at  night,  and  some  of 
them  forgetting  (!)  the  oil  for  their  lamps  and  being 
rejected  by  the  bridegroom  for  this  slight  negligence — 
these  are  not  pictures  taken  from  life,  but  untrue  con- 
structions of  a  flighty  imagination.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  master  in  the  parable  of  the  loan  of  the 
talents  (Matthew  xxv,  14),  who  is  angry  with  the  servant 
who  brings  back  his  talent  without  interest,  deals  hardly 
with  him,  and  casts  him  into  the  darkness,  where  there 
was  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth.  We  may  note  in 
passing  that  Matthew  xxv,  29,  is  a  rabbinical  proverb 

1  Koheleth  rabba,  9,  8.  See  also  Bereschit  rabba,  sect.  62,  fol.  60,  col.  3 ; 
and  Sohar  Levit.,  fol.  40,  col.  158. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  285 

from  the  Talmud,  where  we  read  :  "  He  who  gathers 
shall  have  more  added  unto  him ;  but  he  who  suffers  a 
loss,  from  him  shall  yet  more  be  taken."1 

Of  the  parables  in  Luke,  that  of  the  lost  sheep  (xv,  4) 
runs  as  follows  in  the  Talmud  :  "A  muleteer  drove  twelve 
span  before  him,  all  laden  with  wine.  One  of  them 
strayed  into  the  yard  of  a  Gentile.  Then  the  driver  left 
the  others,  and  sought  the  one  that  had  broken  loose. 
Asked  how  he  had  ventured  to  leave  the  others  for  the 
sake  of  one,  he  answered  :  The  others  remained  on  the 
public  road,  where  there  was  no  danger  of  any  man 
seeking  to  steal  my  property,  as  he  would  know  that  he 
was  observed  by  so  many.  So  it  was  with  the  other 
children  of  Jacob  [besides  Joseph].  They  remained 
under  the  eye  of  their  father,  and  were  moreover  older 
than  Joseph.  He,  however,  was  left  to  himself  in  his 
youth.  Hence  the  Scripture  says  that  God  took  special 
care  of  him."2 

The  parable  of  the  lost  piece  of  silver  (xv,  8)  repeats 
and  weakens  the  same  idea,  and  is  likewise  found  in  the 
Talmud :  "  When  a  man  loses  a  piece  of  gold,  he  lights 
many  lamps  in  order  to  seek  it.  If  a  man  takes  all  this 
trouble  for  the  sake  of  temporal  things,  how  much  the 
more  should  he  when  there  is  question  of  treasures  that 
keep  their  worth  in  the  world  to  come  ?"  (Midrash  Schir 
hashirim,  fol.  3,  col.  2).  It  is  also  the  theory  of  the 
rabbis3  that  penitent  sinners  are  dearer  to  God  than  the 
virtuous  (Luke  xv,  10). 

The  parable  of  the  unjust  steward  (Luke  xvi,  1)  runs 
as  follows  in  the  Talmud  :  "  A  king  had  appointed  two 
overseers.  One  he  chose  as  master  of  the  treasure ;  the 
other  he  put  in  charge  of  the  straw-store.  After  a  time 
the  latter  fell  under  suspicion  of  unfaithfulness.  Never- 


1  Tikkunim  in  Sohar  Chadash,  fol.  75,  col.  4. 

2  Bereschit  rabba,  sect.  86,  fol.  84,  col.  3. 

8  See  Sohar  to  Gen.,  fol.  29,  col.  1113,  where  it  is  said  that  the  penitent 
was  a  stage  above  the  pious  ;  and  Sohar  to  Lev.,  fol.  7,  col.  56. 


286  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

theless  he  complained  that  he  was  not  promoted  to  the 
post  of  master  of  the  treasure.  Then  was  he  asked,  in 
astonishment  at  his  words :  Fool,  thou  hast  incurred 
suspicion  in  charge  of  the  stores  of  straw :  how  couldst 
thou  be  entrusted  with  the  treasure?"  (Jalkut  Simeoni, 
(sect.  1,  fol.  81,  col.  1).  The  parable  is  not  profound; 
but  it  is  not  quite  inconceivable,  as  is  the  case  with  the 
parable  in  the  gospel,  when  it  says:  "And  the  lord 
commended  the  unjust  steward,"  and  "  Make  to  your- 
selves friends  of  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness He 

that  is  faithful  in  that  which  is  least  is  faithful  also  in 
much ;  and  he  that  is  unjust  in  the  least  is  unjust  also 
in  much.  If,  therefore,  ye  have  not  been  faithful  in  the 
unrighteous  mammon,  who  will  commit  to  your  trust 
the  true  riches  ?  And  if  ye  have  not  been  faithful  in  that 
which  is  another  man's,  who  shall  give  you  that  which  is 
your  own?"  (8-12).  One  asks  in  astonishment  how 
such  a  parable  could  find  admission  into  the  New 
Testament. 

The  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  poor  Lazarus  (Luke 
xvi,  20)  reminds  us  of  the  Talmud  story  of  two  men  who 
died  at  the  same  time,  one  of  whom  had  lived  virtuously 
and  the  other  viciously,  and  whom  a  rabbi  saw,  the  one 
enjoying  great  delight,  the  other  painfully  licking  with  his 
tongue  the  edge  of  a  spring,  the  water  of  which  he  could 
not  reach.1  We  read  much  the  same  in  Midrasch 
Koheleth,  fol.  86,  col.  14  :  "  Of  two  sinners  one  had 
been  converted  before  his  death ;  the  other  remained  in 
sin.  When  the  latter  went  to  hell,  he  marvelled  to  see 
the  former  companion  of  his  evil  deeds  taken  into  heaven. 
Then  he  heard  a  voice :  Fool,  know  that  thy  frightful 
death  brought  thy  companion  to  repentance ;  why  didst 
thou  refuse  during  thy  life  to  turn  thy  heart  to  penance  ? 
To  this  the  sinner  replied :  Let  me  do  penance  now. 
Fool,  the  voice  cried  once  more,  knowest  thou  not  that 

1  Tractat.  Chagiga,  fol.  77,  col.  4,  Jerusalem  Talmud. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  287 

eternal  life  is  like  the  Sabbath  ?  He  who  does  not 
prepare  his  food  for  the  Sabbath  on  the  day  of  prepara- 
tion [Friday] ,  whereof  will  he  eat  on  the  Sabbath  ?  He 
who  does  not  penance  before  he  dies  shall  have  no  share 
in  eternal  life."  In  fact,  the  very  words  of  Luke  xvi,  25, 
are  found  in  the  Talmud,  where  it  is  said  of  the  godless : 
"  Because  you  have  no  share  in  that  life  you  receive  your 
reward  in  this  world  "  (Berachoth,  fol.  61,  col.  2). 

In  order  to  illustrate  the  words,  "  Ask,  and  it  shall  be 
given  you ;  knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you " 
(Luke  xi,  9),  Jesus  tells  the  parable  of  a  man  who  goes 
to  a  friend  at  midnight  and  asks  for  three  loaves,  which 
he  at  length  receives,  not  from  good-feeling  or  affection, 
but  because  of  his  importunity.  The  widow  also  (Luke 
xviii,  1)  obtains  her  deliverance  from  her  adversary  after 
long  entreaty  only  because  she  was  so  troublesome  to  the 
judge.  These  parables  are  harmless  in  themselves,  but 
what  an  unworthy  idea  of  God  is  embodied  in  them ! 

The  comparison  of  the  Messiah  to  a  bridegroom 
(Matthew  ix,  15 ;  John  iii,  29),  and  his  coming  to  that  of 
a  thief  in  the  night  (Luke  xii,  39),  must  have  been  very 
common  among  the  Jews,  as  we  find  it  also  in  Revelation 
(iii,  3,  and  xix,  7),  and  we  saw  that  this  was  originally  a 
Jewish  work,  subsequently  modified  in  the  Christian 
sense  ;  perhaps  it  belonged  to  the  circle  of  Gnostic  sects 
from  which  Christianity  issued.1 

After  all  this  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  the  parables 
of  Jesus  could  not  be  "  invented  "  or  are  "  unsurpassable." 
On  the  contrary,  they  are  often  defective,  sometimes 
quite  inconceivable,  and  are  closely  related  to  the  Jewish 
parables  both  in  form  and  contents ;  indeed,  they  are  in 
part  imitations  of  the  latter,  and  are  at  times  weakened, 
instead  of  being  improved,  in  reproduction.  It  is  mere 
theological  hypnotism,  which  more  or  less  affects  all  of 
us,  that  makes  so  much  of  the  parables  of  Jesus,  And 

1  Also  compare  Isaiah  Ixi,  10,  and  Mark  ii,  19, 


288  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

when  Fiebig  says,  in  his  Die  Gleichnisreden  Jesu  (1899), 
that  these  parables  "  have  in  themselves  the  guarantee  that 
no  one  but  Jesus  could  have  created  them  "  (p.  162),  we 
know  what  to  think  of  such  extravagances. 

The  parables  of  the  good  Samaritan  (Luke  x),  the 
prodigal  son  (Luke  xv) ,  and  the  Pharisee  and  the  publican 
(Luke  xviii)  are  really  beautiful  and  important.  The 
first,  however,  has  a  parallel  in  a  Buddhistic  parable 
which  is  believed  to  have  had  some  influence  on  the 
gospel  story  j1  the  coincidence  proves  at  all  events  that 
such  a  parable  could  be  "  invented."  The  parable  of  the 
good  Samaritan  corresponds  in  substance  with  Deut.  xxii,  1. 
It  is  in  harmony  with  Jewish  morality,  but  not  with  the 
command  which  Jesus  laid  on  his  disciples  not  to  go  to 
the  Samaritans.  Possibly  it  is  a  later  invention  belonging 
to  the  time  when  the  Christian  mission  was  extended  to 
non-Jewish  places.  Both  of  the  first  two  parables  give 
ground  for  reflection  in  the  fact  that  they  are  found  only 
in  Luke,  not  in  Matthew  and  John.  This  looks  as  if 
they  were  not  in  the  so-called  collection  of  sayings.  As 
to  the  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the  publican,  so 
excellent  a  story  may  have  been  invented  late,  just  as 
well  as  that  of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery  (John  viii,  3). 
How  can  we  say  that  it  was  impossible  for  any  but  Jesus 
to  have  told  the  story  ? 

11.— GENERAL  EESULT. 

This  examination  of  the  parables  contained  in  the 
gospels  confirms  our  conclusion  that  it  is  impossible  to 
see  in  the  words  of  Jesus  any  proof  of  his  historicity. 
Theologians  are  shocked  that  the  Christ-Myth  is  unable 
to  agree  with  the  usual  unrestrained  admiration  of  the 
ethical  principles  of  Jesus.  Yet  it  has  a  companion  in 
this  in  Schneider,  who  writes  : — 

Jesus  remains  pre-Hellenic  in  ethic.     He  is  a  prophet, 

1  Pfleiderer,  Urchristentum  (1902),  i,  p.  447;  Van  don  Bergh  van 
Eysinga,  Indische  Einflilsse  auf  evang.  Erztihlungen  (2nd  ed.  1909,  p.  57). 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  289 

not  a  philosopher;  an  instrument  of  God,  not  a  free- 
thinker. His  highest  conceptions  are  anthropomorphic ; 
his  whole  nature  is  semi-scientific,  scholastic,  clear  in 
collecting  instances  to  support  his  statement,  but  incapable 
of  appreciating  and  properly  presenting  instances  to  the 
contrary.  If  we  look  only  at  details,  we  imagine  that 
Jesus  has  exhausted  all  the  possibilities  of  ethics ;  if  we 
regard  the  whole,  we  see  that  he  skims  the  surface  and 
thinks  he  can  hold  all  things,  because  he  can  penetrate 
none.  It  is  only  children  that  can  unite  everything. 
Thus  Jesus  is  not  the  highest  and  freest  personality  of 
history,  but  only  the  highest  in  ancient  Judaism,  restricted 
and  not  free  in  comparison  with  the  greatest  Greek  thinkers. 
If,  in  spite  of  this,  he  had  succeeded  to  their  heritage  with 
his  ethic,  he  owes  this  to  his  reactionary  character.  The 
romanticists  of  Hellenism,  sated  with  the  rational,  were 
impressed  by  the  irrationality,  the  paradox,  the  authori- 
tative and  primitive,  the  sentimental-social  element  in  his 
teaching ;  romanticists  easily  become  Catholics.  To  the 
masses  the  prophet  of  Nazareth  becomes  a  Tammuz-form  ; 
the  authoritative  foundation  of  his  ethic  becomes  a  blunt 
command  of  a  strong  God  to  weak  men ;  the  utilitarian 
idea  of  redemption  in  this  world  (?)  becomes  a  common 
(immoral,  in  the  sense  of  the  highest  Greek  morality)  and 
material  hope  as  regards  the  other  world,  of  which  Jesus 
himself  knew,  and  could  know,  nothing  (p.  478). 

Thus  we  can  sufficiently  understand  the  "  mighty,  life- 
controlling  impression"  which  the  gospel  figure  of  Jesus 
has  made  on  millions  of  people.  "  Some  magic  or  power 
must  have  gone  forth  from  him,"  says  Weiss,  and  he 
points  to  the  fact  that  art  has  at  all  times  gone  to  the 
gospels  for  material.  "  The  true  artist  has  a  sure  feeling 
for  the  sincere  and  living ;  he  is  for  us  an  impartial 
witness  that" — Jesus  was  an  historical  personality? 
No,  no ;  but  that — "  the  gospel  tradition,  however  it 
arose,  is  not  an  insignificant  thing,  but  something  alive 
and  true  "  (p.  46).  As  if  that  were  in  contradiction  to 
our  thesis  that  the  "  words  of  the  Lord,"  because  they 
are  supposed  to  come  from  Jesus,  are  immeasurably 
overrated  and  their  defects  overlooked,  and  therefore 
in  no  circumstances  can  they  be  used  to  prove  the 
historical  reality  of  the  god-man  Jesus  in  the  usual 

u 


290  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

sense  !  This  argument — we  cannot  repeat  it  too  often — 
runs  in  a  circle,  like  all  the  others.  No  one  betrays  this 
more  clearly  than  Weiss  himself  when  he  exclaims  to 
the  reader  at  the  close  of  his  work :  "  Take  and  read  ! 

Bead  the  words   of   Jesus,  as   if  they   came  from 

Jesus,  and  thou  wilt  recognise  that  this  is  not  merely  the 
simplest,  but  the  safest,  theory"  (p.  170).  That  is 
exactly  what  we  charge  against  theology,  even  when  it 
professes  to  be  critical :  it  has  hitherto  always  read  the 
words  of  the  gospels  as  if  they  came  from  Jesus,  without 
considering  the  opposite  theory.  This  may  very  well  be 
the  "  simplest "  and  most  convenient  way  of  dealing  with 
the  gospels ;  but  is  it  on  that  account  the  correct  way  ? 
In  such  circumstances  theologians  naturally  find  what 
they  assumed  in  advance,  just  as  the  believer  finds  in  the 
gospels  the  Jesus  whom  he  seeks — the  Jesus  that  heredity, 
education,  and  custom  have  suggested  to  him.  But  that 
this  is  a  "scientific  method,"  or  has  anything  whatever 
to  do  with  sound  historical  research,  is  exactly  what 
we  deny. 

12.— THE  "STRONG  PERSONALITY." 

When  we  regard  all  that  we  have  seen  as  to  the 
mythic,  Old  Testament,  and  Talmudic  character  of  the 
actions  and  words  of  Jesus,  it  is  difficult  to  maintain 
with  good  conscience  the  existence  of  an  historical  Jesus. 
Of  which  of  his  actions  or  words  could  it  be  said  with 
confidence  that  they  really  go  back  to  an  historical  Jesus  ? 
The  situation  is  not  that  certain  things  in  the  gospels 
are  found  to  be  fictitious,  and  that  this  by  no  means  robs 
all  the  rest  of  historical  value.  The  fact  is  that  there  is 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  either  in  the  actions  or  words 
of  Jesus,  that  has  not  a  mythical  character  or  cannot  be 
traced  to  parallel  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  or  the 
Talmud,  and  is  therefore  under  suspicion  of  being  derived 
from  them.  Let  us  hear  no  more  of  the  "  uniqueness  " 
of  and  "  impossibility  of  inventing  "  the  Jesus  of  the 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  291 

gospels  !  Until  the  passages  in  the  gospels  are  positively 
shown  to  us  on  which  such  a  claim  is  made,  we  are  justified 
in  ignoring  it. 

It  is  a  complete  misunderstanding  of  the  facts  to  say 
that  this  admitted  "  mythical  woof  "  of  the  gospels  proves 
nothing  against  their  substantial  accuracy,  and  to  attempt 
to  convict  those  who  reject  the  historical  Jesus  of  defective 
method.  The  wrong  method  is  altogether  on  the  side  of 
those  who  believe  in  an  historical  Jesus,  although  there 
is  not  a  single  passage  in  the  gospels  they  can  show  to  be 
historical.  "  When  the  throne  falls,  the  duke  must  go." 
If  all  the  details  of  the  gospel  story  are  resolved  in 
mythical  mist,  as  they  are  resolved  in  the  hands  of 
historical  criticism,  then,  precisely  from  the  methodo- 
logical point  of  view,  we  lose  all  right,  not  merely  to  say 
what  Jesus  was,  but  to  make  the  bare  assertion  that 
there  ever  was  such  a  person.  ''It  is  uprooting  the 
foundations  of  history,  we  are  told,  not  to  believe  in  the 
existence  of  Christ  and  the  truth  of  the  narratives  of  his 
apostles  and  the  sacred  writers.  Cicero's  brother  also 
said :  '  It  is  uprooting  the  foundations  of  history  to  deny 
the  truth  of  the  Delphic  oracles.'  I  would  ask  Christians 
if  they  think  they  destroy  the  foundations  of  history 
when  they  reject  these  oracles,  and  whether  the  Eoman 
orator  would  have  thought  that  he  was  destroying  the 
foundations  of  history  if  he  had  rejected  their  oracles, 
supposing  that  he  had  known  them.  Each  man  fights 
for  his  own  chimera,  not  for  history."1 

But  "  our  confidence  in  tradition  and  in  historical 
reason  will  be  profoundly  shaken  if  there  never  was  such 
a  person  as  Jesus,"  exclaims  Herr  von  Soden — and  hun- 
dreds echo  the  lament.  For  in  that  case  "  the  whole  of 
civilisation  has  been  deceived  for  2,000  years"  (p.  8). 
The  answer  to  this  difficulty — so  profoundly  penetrated 
with  the  "  historical  sense  " — was  given  by  Steudel.3  It 

1  Dupuis,  Ursprung  des  Gottesverehrung,  p.  228. 
a  Wir  Gelehrten  vom  Fach,  p.  8. 


292  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

almost  looks  as  if  the  old  French  scholar  Dupuis  had 
foreseen  von  Soden  when  he  says  that  "  in  matters  of 
religion  the  belief  of  many  generations  proves  nothing  but 
their  own  credulity ;  Hercules  was  assuredly  the  sun, 
whatever  the  Greeks  may  have  believed  and  said  of  him. 
A  great  error  is  propagated  more  easily  than  a  great  truth, 
because  it  is  easier  to  believe  than  to  reflect,  and  men 
prefer  the  wonders  of  romance  to  the  plain  facts  of 
history.  If  we  were  to  adopt  that  rule  of  criticism,  we 
might  urge  against  Christians  that  the  faith  of  any  people 
in  the  miracles  and  oracles  of  its  religion  proved  its  truth ; 
I  doubt  if  they  would  admit  the  argument,  and  we  will  do 
the  same  with  theirs.  I  know  that  they  will  say  that  they 
alone  have  the  truth ;  but  the  other  people  say  the  same- 
Who  shall  judge  between  them  ?  Sound  reason,  not  pre- 
formed faith  or  pre-formed  opinion,  however  widespread 
it  may  be"  (p.  227).  For  the  rest,  have  not  nearly 
eighteen  centuries  believed  in  the  " god-man"  Christ, 
and  died  in  the  belief,  though  a  more  enlightened  age  has 
shown  that  the  belief  was  a  mythological  illusion,  and  our 
liberal  theologians  have  succeeded  it  with  their  human 
Jesus  ?  Our  confidence  in  historical  reason  will  be 
shaken  if  there  never  was  such  a  person  as  Jesus ! 
But  must  not  this  confidence  in  reason  be  shaken  if  it 
should  be  true  that  a  man  has  been  made  a  god,  and  for 
centuries  has  been  honoured  as  Jesus  was  in  Christianity  ? 
One  defends,  so  to  say,  the  honour  of  human  reason, 
when  one  shows  it  the  error  of  what  liberal  theology  calls 
history  and  the  origin  of  Christianity.  Liberal  theo- 
logians would  do  well  to  reflect  before  they  cut  the  ground 
from  under  their  own  feet  with  such  arguments. 

There  is  still  one  difficulty  to  consider,  and,  although 
it  has  not  a  very  firm  basis  in  our  opponents,  it  has 
played  a  great  part  in  the  public  discussion — the  difficulty, 
namely,  that  so  mighty  a  spiritual  movement  as  Chris- 
tianity can  only  be  explained  by  a  "strong  personality," 
who  must,  of  course,  have  been  Jesus.  This  difficulty 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  293 

also  may  be  described  as  "  simple."  It  assumes  some- 
thing that  needs  proving — that  only  a  great  individual 
personality  can  bring  about  a  spiritual  movement,  and 
that  such  a  movement  must  in  all  circumstances  be  traced 
to  a  single  outstanding  personality.  What  instances  are 
there  of  this  in  history?  Are  we  referred  to  the  per- 
sonality of  Luther  in  relation  to  the  Eeformation  ?  But 
historians  are  agreed  that  Luther  would  never  have 
accomplished  his  task  if  he  had  not  been  preceded  by 
Huss,  Jerome  of  Prague,  Savonarola,  the  mysticism  of 
Eckehart  and  Tauler,  etc.  And  beside  Luther  are  other 
"strong"  personalities,  such  as  Zwingli,  Calvin,  and 
Hutten,  men  who  helped  to  clear  the  stifling  religious 
atmosphere  of  the  time  by  their  contemporary  appearance 
and  work  in  the  direction  of  the  Eeformation.  And 
would  all  these  men  together  have  done  anything  if  they 
had  not  found  the  masses  prepared  for  their  ideas,  and  an 
age  that  pressed  for  the  settlement  of  a  crisis  ? 

Great  personalities  are  by  no  means  always  the  initiators 
of  a  new  spiritual  movement.  It  is  usually  prepared  in 
numbers  of  individuals,  and  at  length  the  inner  need 
reaches  its  height  and  a  few  clear-minded  and  energetic 
personalities  take  the  lead,  though  these  need  not  at  all  be 
the  "  greatest  "  of  their  age.  When  the  harvest  is  ripe,  the 
seed  falls,  and  no  superhuman  force  is  needed.  It  may 
be  questioned  whether  Luther  could  have  established  the 
Eeformation  if  he  had  been  born  fifty  years  earlier.  The 
importance  and  power  of  a  movement,  therefore,  are  by 
no  means  proportionate  to  the  importance  of  the  per- 
sonalities in  whom  it  takes  shape,  and  who  give  the  first 
impulse  to  its  becoming  an  open  force.  If  the  time  has 
come,  a  slight  impulse  will  often  suffice  to  discharge  the 
accumulated  energy;  just  as  a  small  stone  detached  on 
the  precipice  suffices  to  launch  an  avalanche  that  thunders 
down  the  mountain  and  sweeps  away  forests,  houses,  and 
men.  So  mighty  a  movement  as  the  Eenascence,  which 
entirely  changed  the  intellectual  condition  of  Europe  in 


294  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

less  than  two  centuries  and  ended  the  Middle  Ages,  did 
not  start  from  a  single  personality.  The  French  Kevolu- 
tion  was  essentially  the  work  of  the  masses,  from  which  a 
few  gifted,  but  by  no  means  "  powerful,"  personalities — 
Mirabeau,  Danton,  Eobespierre,  etc. — stood  out ;  and  they 
were,  to  some  extent,  rather  swept  along  by  it  than 
leaders  of  it. 

Who  was  the  founder  of  the  Babylonian,  the  Egyptian, 
or  the  Greek  culture  ?  Who  created  the  ancient  religions 
of  Zeus,  Dionysos,  and  Osiris  ?  Who  founded  Judaism  ? 
Was  it  Moses?  The  more  advanced  representatives  of 
science  have  long  since  given  up  the  historicity  of  Moses, 
and  even  those  who  still  adhere  to  it  are  compelled  to 
restrict  his  significance  to  such  an  extent  that  it  is  quite 
absurd  to  call  him  the  "  founder  "  of  the  Jewish  religion. 
Post-exilic  Judaism  was  created,  quite  independently  of 
this  legendary  Moses,  by  the  joint  work  of  the  priests  at 
the  temple  of  Jerusalem  who,  under  the  influence  of  the 
prophetic  reform,  codified  and  elaborated  "the  law"; 
only  a  few  names  have  come  down  to  us,  and  even  in 
their  case  we  have  no  guarantee  that  even  the  smallest 
share  of  the  work  can  be  ascribed  to  them.  In  the  case 
of  the  religion  of  Mithra  even  these  few  names  are 
wanting.  Yet  Mithraism  was  a  religious  movement  that 
spread  with  irresistible  force  from  the  east  over  Europe 
about  the  beginning  of  the  present  era,  and  was  the  most 
dangerous  rival  of  Christianity  in  the  fourth  century.  It 
has  been  said  that  Mithraism  failed,  in  contrast  with 
Christianity,  precisely  because  it  did  not  spring  from  a 
strong  personality  such  as  Jesus.  There  is  this  much 
truth  in  the  statement,  that  the  Persian  Mithra  was  a 
very  shadowy  form  beside  Jesus,  who  came  nearer  to  the 
heart,  especially  of  women,  invalids,  and  the  weak,  in  his 
human  features  and  on  account  of  the  touching  descrip- 
tion of  his  death.  But  that  shows  at  the  most  that  the 
more  concrete  idea  has  the  better  prospect  of  triumphing 
in  a  spiritual  struggle  than  the  more  abstract ;  it  proves 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  295 

nothing  as  regards  the  historical  reality  of  the  idea. 
Moreover,  history  teaches  us  that  it  was  quite  different 
causes — partly  external  and  accidental  causes  of  a  political 
nature,  such  as  the  death  in  the  Persian  war  of  the 
Emperor  Julian,  one  of  the  most  zealous  followers  of 
Mithra  —  that  gave  Christianity  the  victory  over 
Mithraism.1 

There  is,  therefore,  no  proof  whatever  in  such  general 
assertions  as  that  only  a  great  and  powerful  personality 
like  Jesus  could  have  given  birth  to  Christianity.  That 
is  a  very  convenient  way  of  proving  one's  thesis.  It  is 
merely  a  relic  of  the  childlike  conception  of  history  that 
we  often  find  in  elementary  schools — the  conception  that 
history  is  "made"  exclusively  by  what  are  called  heroes, 
among  whom  must  be  numbered  the  ancestors  of  the 
ruling  house.  A  great  spiritual  movement  may  be 
brought  into  being  by  strong  personalities,  but  need  not 
be;  and  the  claim  that  such  a  movement  must  have 
been  brought  about  by  a  single  outstanding  personality 
is  a  monstrous  absurdity,  and  the  absurdity  only  increases 
when  this  individual  is  supposed  to  be  so  " unique"  as  to 
transcend  all  human  levels,  as  Jesus  is  represented  by 
theological  "historians." 

Naturally,  the  early  Christian  movement  had  "  great " 
personalities  to  give  it  a  definite  aim,  control  its  organisa- 
tion and  direction,  and  defend  its  right  to  be  heard. 
Peter,  James,  John,  etc.,  may  have  been  among  these 
individuals,  whose  merits  were  so  much  appreciated  by 
a  later  Christian  generation  that  they  became  direct 
disciples  of  Jesus  in  the  "  history  "  of  the  Saviour.  But 


1  Of.  J.  M.  Robertson,  Pagan  Christs,  2nd  ed.,  1911,  327 ff.  As 
Robertson  shows  in  this  work  also,  the  historicity  of  Zarathustra  and 
Buddha  is  not  so  well  founded  as  one  commonly  thinks.  Only  of  one 
single  great  religion  (Mohammedanism)  do  we  know  positively  that  its 
founder  was  an  historical  person.  But  Mohammedanism  is  in  its 
essence  not  an  original  religious  creation,  but  an  eclectic  composition  of 
ancient  Arabic  and  Jewish  fragments,  and  the  great  influence  which  it 
exerted  in  history  depends  upon  quite  other  things  than  its  inner 
religious  truth. 


296  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

it  does  not  follow  that  they  were  inspired  in  their  work 
by  an  historical  Jesus,  any  more  than  that  the  Virgin 
Mary  must  be  an  historical  personality  because  a  French 
peasant-girl  thought  that  she  saw  her  with  her  bodily 
eyes  in  a  lonely  grotto,  and  in  consequence  thousands  go 
every  year  to  Lourdes  to  be  healed  of  their  maladies. 
For  the  rest,  if  anyone  persists  in  thinking  that  Chris- 
tianity must  have  been  founded  by  a  single  powerful 
personality,  may  it  not  have  been  Paul  ?  If  not  Paul, 
have  not  our  inquiries  shown  that  in  the  long  run  the 
contents  of  the  gospels  may  be  traced  to  the  prophet 
Isaiah,  whose  "  predictions,"  sayings,  penitential  appeals, 
and  promises  reappear  in  the  gospels,  in  the  form  of  a 
narrative  ?  Hence  Isaiah,  not  Jesus,  would  be  the 
powerful  personality  to  whom  Christianity  would  owe  its 
existence. 

13.— THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS  AND  THE 
IDEAL  CHRIST. 

If,  then,  the  historical  individual  Jesus  cannot  be 
regarded  as  the  founder  of  Christianity  and  the  one  who 
inspired  the  followers  of  the  new  religion  and  impelled 
them  to  sacrifice  their  lives  for  their  faith,  what  can  we 
substitute  for  him  as  the  determining  principle  of  the 
whole  movement?  Isaiah's  suffering  servant  of  God, 
offering  himself  for  the  sins  of  men,  the  just  of  Wisdom 
in  combination  with  the  mythic  ideas  of  a  suffering, 
dying,  and  rising  god-saviour  of  the  nearer  Asiatic  religions 
—it  was  about  these  alone,  as  about  a  solid  nucleus,  that 
the  contents  of  the  new  religion  crystallised.  The  ideal 
Christ,  not  the  historical  Jesus  of  modern  liberal  theology, 
was  the  founder  of  the  Christian  movement,  and  made  it 
victorious  over  its  opponents.  It  is  more  probable  that 
Jesus  and  Isaiah  are  one  and  the  same  person  than  that 
the  Jesus  of  liberal  theology  brought  Christianity  into 
existence ;  that  the  first  Christians,  the  Jessaeans,  were 
followers  of  the  prophet ;  and  that  in  their  over-heated 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  297 

imaginations  the  figure  of  the  prophet  himself  was  trans- 
formed into  the  Saviour  and  Redeemer.1 

From  the  first  we  find  Christianity  as  the  religion,  not 
of  the  historical  man  Christ,  but  of  the  super-historical 
god-man  Jesus  Christ,  who  merely  passes  through  history. 
It  is  he  who  is  supposed  to  have  appeared  to  Paul  and 
revealed  himself  as  the  true  Saviour  (Gal.  i,  12  and  16). 
His  figure  is  discerned  clearly  enough  beneath  the  human 
clothing  in  the  gospels,  the  purpose  of  which  it  is,  not  "  to 
raise  to  a  higher  sphere  the  life  of  the  historical  Jesus 
by  means  of  fanciful  myths  and  stories  of  miracles,  but 
to  bring  home  to  readers  by  an  historical  representation 
the  superhuman  divine  nature  of  Jesus."3  That  God 
himself  has  exchanged  his  heavenly  glory  for  the  lowli- 
ness of  earth  ;  that  Christ  became  "  the  son  of  God  "  and 
descended  upon  the  earth ;  that  God  divested  himself  of 
his  divinity,  took  on  human  form,  led  a  life  of  poverty 
with  the  poor,  suffered,  was  crucified  and  buried,  and 
rose  again,  and  thus  secured  for  men  the  power  to  rise 
again  and  to  obtain  forgiveness  of  sins  and  a  blessed  life 
with  the  heavenly  father — that  is  the  mystery  of  the  figure 
of  Christ ;  that  is  what  the  figure  conveyed  to  the  hearts 
of  the  faithful,  and  stirred  them  to  an  ecstatic  reverence 
for  this  deepest  revelation  of  God.  There  is  not  in  the 
centre  of  Christianity  one  particular  historical  human 
being,  but  the  idea  of  man,  of  the  suffering,  struggling, 
humiliated,  but  victoriously  emerging  from  all  his 
humiliations,  "  servant  of  God,"  symbolically  represented 
in  the  actions  and  experiences  of  a  particular  historical 
person.  How  much  grander,  loftier,  and  more  spiritual 
is  this  idea  than  the  prosy  belief  of  liberal  theologians  in 
the  "  unique  "  personality  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  of  1,900 

1  As  is  known,  there  was  a  legend   of  Isaiah   having   been  taken  up 
into  heaven,  like  Moses,  Elijah,    Enoch,  etc. — a   proof   that  about  the 
beginning  of  the  present  era  the   figure   of    the   prophet  had  actually 
assumed  superhuman  characters. 

2  Ferd.  Jak.  Schmidt,  Der  Christus  des  Glaubens  und  der   Jesus  der 
Geschichte  (1910),  p.  29. 


298  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

years  ago,  which  has  played  hardly  any  part  in  the  whole 
Christian  development,  and  which,  on  account  of  its 
temporal,  national,  and  temperamental  limitations,  would 
never  have  been  able  to  fill  the  religious  thought  of  nearly 
two  thousand  years. 

Those  who  believe  in  an  historical  Jesus  tell  us  that 
personalities,  not  ideas,  make  history.  Apart,  however, 
from  the  fact  that  this  is  no  proof  of  the  historicity  of 
Jesus,  as,  of  course,  the  idea  of  the  Christian  Saviour  had 
to  be  made  the  centre  of  the  new  religion  by  person- 
alities, until  three  generations  ago  the  personality  was 
not  prominent  at  all  in  the  historical  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity, but  was  used  merely  as  an  "  illustration "  in 
explaining  the  unfolding  of  the  divine  idea,  without  having 
any  independent  significance  as  the  leading  and  shaping 
factor  in  history. 

In  his  work,  Idee  und  Personlichkeit  in  der  Kirchen- 
geschichte  (1910),  Walther  Kohler  has  shown  by  means 
of  historical  facts  how  little  interest  Christianity  has  in 
"great"  personalities,  since  the  most  distinguished 
members  of  the  religion,  such  as  Augustine,  Thomas 
Aquinas,  Eckehart,  Tauler,  Huss,  Luther,  etc.,  conceived 
the  world-process  as  a  divine  phenomenon,  made  the 
individual  secondary  to  the  development  of  ideas,  and 
merely  introduced  it  occasionally  to  illustrate  the  ideal 
history.  When  Master  Eckehart  speaks  of  Christ,  he  is 
by  no  means  thinking  of  the  historical  individual,  but 
merely  of  the  idea  of  the  Christ,  whose  actions  and  sayings 
in  the  gospels  he  interprets  symbolically,  and  converts 
into  the  super-historical  of  his  speculative  mysticism. 
When  Lessing  pens  the  famous  words,  "  The  accidental 
truths  of  history  can  never  furnish  proof  of  the  necessary 
truths  of  reason,"  he  shows  that  he  attaches  no  importance 
in  his  religious  feeling  to  the  historical  person  of  Jesus. 
According  to  Kant,  the  historical  serves  "  only  to  illustrate, 
not  to  demonstrate."  In  his  work,  Die  Religion  inner halb 
der  Grenzen  der  blossen  Vernunft,  Christ  is  to  him  nothing 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  299 

but  "  the  ideal  of  human  perfection,"  and  he  says  that  it 
contains  its  reality  "in  itself"  for  practical  purposes: 
"  We  need  no  example  from  experience  to  serve  as  a 
model  to  us  of  the  idea  of  a  man  morally  pleasing  to 
God;  it  is  found  as  such  in  our  reason."  Indeed,  Kant 
regards  it  as  "  the  utmost  absurdity  conceivable  "  to  take 
an  historical  belief,  like  that  in  Jesus,  however  pro- 
portioned it  be  to  human  capacity,  and  however  deeply 
it  may  be  rooted  in  the  hearts  of  men  on  account  of  its 
long  prevalence,  as  a  condition  of  a  universal  and 
exclusively  saving  faith  (p.  280). 

How  far  from  this  view  are  our  modern  liberal  theo- 
logians— who,  nevertheless,  swear  by  Kant — when  they 
make  the  belief  in  the  historical  man  Jesus,  the  "  personal 
life  of  Jesus,"  in  their  fine  phrase,  the  essential  element 
of  Christianity  !  What  they  really  appreciate  in  Kant  is 
his  hostility  to  metaphysics,  which  enables  them  to 
refrain  from  positive  statements  on  transcendental  things, 
and  continue  to  use  Biblical  expressions  because  no  more 
correct  expressions  are  yet  available.  Liberal  theology 
is  an  offspring  of  the  time  which  chose  science  for  a 
leader  after  the  collapse  of  speculative  philosophy  about 
the  middle  of  the  last  century,  and,  under  the  banner  of 
modern  empiricism  and  positivism,  branded  the  belief  in 
ideas  as  a  superstition.  It  was  the  time  when  the 
emphasis  of  personality,  which  had  begun  with  Erasmus, 
and  increased  in  the  pietism  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
in  Schleiermacher,  Humboldt,  Neander,  and  others,  at 
length  became  generally  popular.  The  idea  is  nothing  ; 
the  individual  is  everything.  Man,  Feuerbach  had  taught, 
creates  the  idea,  not  the  idea  man.  From  the  psychology 
of  the  academic  school  and  the  general  appreciation  of 
facts  of  experience  theologians  adopted  a  new  way  of 
looking  at  things.  A  tendency  got  the  upper  hand 
among  them  which,  apart  from  religious  speculation, 
rejected  the  hitherto  prevailing  view  of  Christianity  as 
obsolete,  and  substituted  the  mere  man  Jesus  for  the  dis- 


300  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

carded  dogma.  "  Personalities,  not  ideas,  make  history." 
The  cult  of  the  "  great  man "  began.  By  introducing 
personality  as  the  decisive  factor  in  the  mechanism  of 
history,  it  was  hoped  to  find  the  necessary  foundation  for 
the  cult  of  "  the  greatest  personality  in  history,"  the 
historical  Jesus.  The  fact  was  overlooked  that  modern 
empiricism  and  psychology  are  merely  the  complement 
of  scientific  materialism.  It  was  not  noticed  that  to  do 
away  with  the  belief  in  the  objective  idea  was  to  destroy 
the  foundation  of  the  belief  in  providence  and  a  divine 
control  of  human  events ;  and  with  this  belief  all  religion 
disappears.  People  talked  themselves  into  an  ecstatic 
reverence  for  the  "  unique  "  personality  of  Jesus,  although 
the  advancing  criticism  of  the  new  figure  of  Jesus  left 
less  and  less  positive  historical  facts  in  support  of  it,  and 
it  became  increasingly  difficult  to  maintain  this  reverence. 
How  did  it  fare  with  the  professors  when  they  found  the 
traditional  figure  of  Jesus  becoming  fainter  and  fainter 
as  their  "  historical  criticism  "  advanced  ?  The  clergy 
continued  to  breathe  new  life  into  the  fading  figure,  and 
found  it  possible  still  to  feel  themselves  personally  "  over- 
powered "  by  their  Jesus.  They  were  proud  that  they 
now  knew  the  real  "  essence  of  Christianity  "  for  the  first 
time.  And  when  an  objection  was  raised  at  times  to  this 
methodical  Jesus-cult,  they  consoled  themselves  resignedly 
with  the  words  of  Carlyle  :  "  Man  knows  nothing  more 
sacred  than  heroes  and  reverence  for  heroes." 

In  this  condition  of  self-sufficient  ecstasy  about  Jesus, 
in  which  it  was  no  longer  thought  necessary  to  trouble 
about  the  great  questions  of  general  philosophy  from  some 
excessive  tenderness  about  the  "  supersensuous,"  and  the 
"  unknowable "  was  silently  ignored,  The  Christ-Myth 
fell  like  a  bomb,  with  startling  effect.  The  inadequacy  of 
their  own  theory  began  to  dawn  even  upon  the  simplest  of 
them.  A  certain  nervousness  and  insecurity  spread  among 
theologians,  and  took  the  form  of  furious  bitterness  and 
hatred  when  the  author  of  that  work  endeavoured,  by 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  301 

means  of  lectures,  to  interest  the  general  public  in  his 
denial  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus.  Now  the  whole  Press 
is  engaged  against  the  disturber  of  the  peace ;  it  is  the 
easier  as  the  word  "  liberal  "  confuses  the  liberal  in  the 
theological  and  the  political  sense,  in  spite  of  enormous 
differences,  and  the  "  orthodox  "  Press  is  readily  gained. 
Opposing  lectures  and  Protestant  meetings  are  organised, 
and  J.  Weiss  publicly  declares  that  the  author  of  the 
book  has  "  no  right  to  be  taken  seriously."  But  among 
his  fellows,  within  the  four  walls  of  the  lecture-hall,  and 
in  the  printed  version  of  his  lectures,  Weiss  assures  his 
readers  that  he  has  taken  the  matter  "very  seriously," 
and  speaks  of  "  the  fateful  hour  through  which  our  [theo- 
logical] science  is  passing"  (p.  170).  Bousset  declares  in 
the  Scientific  Congress  of  Preachers  at  Hanover  that  the 
question  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus  "  is  not  worthy  of 
occupying  public  attention."  But  at  the  World-Congress 
for  "  Free  Christianity  and  Eeligious  Progress  "  he  grants 
that  the  ideas  of  The  Christ-Myth,  which  "  have  not  even 
been  made  approximately  plausible,"  have  nevertheless  (?) 
awakened  a  conviction  of  the  need  f or  a  "  certain  revision  " 
of  liberal  theological  views.  Indeed,  this  protagonist  of 
the  modern  Jesus-cult,  who  is  supposed  to  have  proved 
so  "triumphantly"  against  Kalthoff  the  correctness  of 
his  views,  acknowledges  that  "  intensive  historical  work 
has  made  the  situation  of  the  present  theological  position 
acute,  and  laid  insupportable  difficulties  on  the  theo- 
logian," and  that  history,  "  when  it  is  pressed  resolutely 
to  the  end,  leads  to  a  region  beyond  itself  ";  and,  appealing 
to  Kant  and  Lessing,  he  demands  a  different  foundation 
for  belief  than  history — namely,  "reason."1 

14.— IDEA  AND  PERSONALITY:  SETTLEMENT 
OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  CRISIS. 

If  liberal  theologians  are  really  in  earnest  in  attempts 
to  attain  a  philosophical  system,  they  can  only  realise 

1  Die  Bedeutung  der  Person  JesufUr  den  Olauben,  pp.  6,  10,  etc. 


302  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

their  aim  by  a  renewal  of  belief  in  reason  in  the  universe, 
in  a  metaphysical  "  sense  "  of  existence,  in  the  denning 
and  controlling  power  of  the  "  idea,"  and  the  co-ordination 
and  subordination  of  human  personality  to  the  system  of 
ends,  the  recognition  of  which  is  the  essence  and  condition 
of  all  religious  belief.  The  chief  danger  that  has  come 
to  our  time,  especially  to  religion,  under  the  influence  of 
science  is  the  denial  of  objective  purpose  in  the  universe. 
Let  men  be  taught  to  believe  again  in  ideas,  and  then 
Monism,  in  its  idealistic  form,  will  become  the  first 
principle  of  all  deep  religious  life.  From  this  point  of 
view  personality  ceases,  however  great  it  may  be,  to  claim 
an  independent  and  unique  significance  in  the  world- 
process  ;  even  the  great  individuals  of  history  sink  to 
the  condition  of  mere  means  and  instruments  ;  "  agents," 
as  Hegel  says,  of  a  purpose  that  represents  a  stage  in  the 
advance  of  the  general  mind.  Liberalism  is  content  with 
the  mere  cult  of  the  great  historical  personality,  as  if  it 
had  any  value  as  such.  But  when  we  ask  how  the  per- 
sonality stands  out  from  its  environment,  what  it  is  that 
raises  an  individual  to  world-significance,  whence  its 
great  influence  and  power  over  men  come,  we  find  that, 
as  Hegel  says,  the  world-spirit  is  especially  active  in  such 
an  individual,  and  leads  his  will. 

In  other  words,  it  is  the  idea  that  attains  consciousness 
in  such  men  and  stirs  them  to  action  ;  they  are  what  they 
are  only  by  the  living  power  of  the  divinity  within  them. 
In  this  sense  it  is  true  that  in  the  last  resort  ideas,  not 
personalities,  rule  the  world;  and  this  is  the  one  really 
religious  view,  because  we  cannot  see  why  Christianity, 
too,  may  not  have  come  into  being  from  the  idea  living  in 
its  adherents  of  a  suffering,  dying,  and  rising  saviour. 
We  see  how  this  idea  created  the  religions  of  Attis, 
Adonis,  Osiris,  Dionysos,  and  similar  gods  ;  how  Christian 
mysticism  has  at  all  times  drawn  fresh  strength  from  it, 
and  German  speculative  philosophy  has  derived  from  it  a 
system  that,  by  its  depth,  amplitude,  and  religious  content, 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  303 

has  thrown  all  previous  systems  into  the  shade,  and  which 
has  only  been  prevented  by  its  scientific  form  from  exer- 
cising an  uplifting  and  ennobling  influence  on  life.  It 
is  said  that  a  purely  ideal  religion  of  this  kind  cannot 
satisfy  the  religious  needs  of  humanity  without  historical 
guarantees  of  its  truth.  But  it  has  satisfied  immense 
numbers  —  even  setting  aside  India,  where  idealistic 
Monism  forms  the  nucleus  of  all  religious  life — in  the 
mysticism  and  piety  of  Eckehart  and  Tauler,  in  that 
humble  and  self-sacrificing  surrender  to  the  all,  such  as  we 
find  in  the  institutions  of  the  later  Middle  Ages,  the  care 
of  the  sick  and  the  poor,  which  owed  their  origin,  not  to 
the  official  religion  of  the  Church,  but  to  the  mystics ;  it 
has  satisfied  the  best  minds  of  Germany  —  Lessing, 
Herder,  Goethe,  Schiller,  Hegel,  etc.  How,  then,  can 
we  be  asked  to  admit  that  the  salvation  of  modern  times 
depends  on  a  belief  that  has,  in  the  Churches,  degenerated 
into  a  stupid  superstition  ?  All  the  best  that  the  German 
mind  has  ever  conceived  or  felt,  for  which  it  has  struggled 
and  suffered,  all  the  deepest  aspirations  of  its  native 
religious  spirit,  which  were  early  quenched  by  the 
missionary  work  of  the  Christian  Church,  owe  their 
emergence  into  light  to  this  Monistic  religion  of  our 
great  thinkers  and  poets.  Why,  then,  should  we  be  com- 
pelled to  take  our  religious  possessions  from  the  past? 
Are  the  ideas  of  a  remote  age  and  a  degenerate  culture 
to  keep  us  under  their  power  for  ever  ?  Much  zeal  is 
shown  against  materialism ;  as  if  it  were  not  just  as 
crude  a  materialism  to  make  the  belief  in  religious  truth 
dependent  on  its  visible  realisation  in  a  single  human 
individual  of  ancient  times,  and  as  if  what  is  called  the 
"  ideal  Christ,"  the  working  of  the  divine  spirit  in  us,  the 
one  source  and  centre  of  all  religious  life,  could  be  replaced 
and  vanquished  by  a  belief  in  the  historical  Jesus.1 

1  See  my  work,  Die  Religion  als  Selbst-Bewusstsein  Gottes  (1906),  and 
the  second  Berliner  Religions-gesprtich  about  the  question,  "Lebt  Jesus?" 
1911. 


304  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

The  question  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus  is,  as  things 
are,  not  merely  an  historical,  but  an  eminently  philo- 
sophical, question.  In  it  is  reflected  the  struggle  of  two 
hostile  philosophical  systems,  which  have  stirred  the 
human  mind  from  the  dawn  of  thought :  on  one  side 
the  belief  in  the  idea  as  the  ultimate  determining 
principle  of  the  world-process,  to  which  the  great  person- 
alities of  history  are  related  as  the  servants,  instruments, 
and  realisers  of  its  content ;  on  the  other  side,  the  view 
that  personalities  as  such  are  the  determining  factors  of 
the  world-process,  and  something  ultimate  and  original. 
On  the  one  hand  is  the  idealistic  philosophy  of  history  in 
the  sense  of  Plato  and  Hegel ;  on  the  other  the  Leibnitzian 
doctrine  of  monads  in  the  shape  of  modern  psychologism 
and  empiricism.  In  essence  it  is  only  the  old  antagonism 
of  realism  and  nominalism  which  absorbed  the  Middle 
Ages — the  question  whether  the  personality  is  the  product 
of  the  idea,  or  the  idea  the  product  of  the  empirical 
personality — that  has  come  to  a  head  in  the  question  of 
the  historical  personality  of  Jesus.  And,  just  as  surely 
as  the  profoundly  religious  thinkers  have  adopted  the 
realistic  view  and  contended  for  the  priority  of  the  idea 
over  the  individual,  so  the  opposite  theory  of  the  nomin- 
alist has  led  to  the  dissolution  of  religion  and  the  decay 
of  belief  in  the  ideal  connectedness  of  the  world-process 
— in  a  "  providence  " — in  which  all  religious  life  is  rooted, 
and  with  which  it  stands  or  falls ;  just  as  surely,  again, 
the  religious  settlement  of  the  problem  will  be  found  only 
in  a  return  to  the  belief  in  the  idea,  and  a  renunciation 
of  the  prevailing  theological  theory  of  the  absoluteness, 
originality,  and  independence  of  personality.  If  it  is  a 
matter  of  experience  that  the  value  of  religion  increases 
in  proportion  to  the  decay  of  the  belief  in  the  absolute 
significance  of  the  individual,  then  modern  religion  will 
only  be  raised  to  its  highest  pitch  of  intensity  when  we 
cease  to  elevate  a  single  personality  of  history  to  the  grade 
of  the  absolute,  and  to  raise  other  human  individuals 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  305 

above  the  significance  of  mere  varying  phenomena  and 
embodiments  of  the  idea.  If  modern  mankind  cannot  be 
restored  to  a  belief  in  the  idea,  if  Plato,  Plotinus,  and 
Hegel  are  now  merely  figures  in  history,  then  all  effort  in 
connection  with  the  further  development  of  religion  will 
be  fruitless,  and  the  doom  of  religion  is  sealed. 

The  desperate  efforts  of  liberal  theologians  to  give  a 
central  significance  in  faith  and  life  to  the  historical  Jesus, 
for  the  sake  of  continuity  with  the  historical  past  and  of 
the  Church,  seem,  from  the  religious  point  of  view,  to 
be  as  absurd  as  they  are  superfluous.  Jesus  is  said  to  be 
"the  greatest  personality  in  the  history  of  the  world," 
the  "  realised  ideal  of  man,"  the  creator  of  Christian 
symbolism  (?),  and  even  a  symbol  of  the  Christian  life  of 
faith  (Bousset)  ;  he  is  glorified  as  "  the  ever  newly  issuing 
embodiment  of  higher  religious  power,  whose  heart-beat 
pulses  throughout  Christendom  "  (Troltsch) ;  his  historical 
existence  is  guaranteed  to  us  by  the  "  immediate  results  " 
of  his  action.  Yet  it  is  merely  self-deception  and  con- 
fusion of  ideas  to  say  that  in  this  way  his  relation  to 
Christianity  can  be  honestly  maintained.  It  is  precisely 
the  aim  of  religion  to  free  man  from  dependence  on  the 
world,  and  therefore  from  the  dependence  and  relative- 
ness  of  temporal  existence.  Hence  a  single  historical 
fact,  like  the  life  and  death  of  a  man  Jesus,  cannot  in  any 
sense  be  made  a  ground  of  faith.  In  religion  the  indi- 
vidual avoids  history  ;  "  he  shakes  it  off,  to  live  his  own 
life."  Neither  in  the  last  resort  nor  in  the  ultimate  aim  of 
his  life  does  he  tolerate  this  "  entanglement  in  the  confused 
lines  of  history." 1  How,  then,  can  the  historical  man  Jesus 
be  made  the  foundation  or  keystone  of  religion  ?  And  how 
can  the  salvation  of  man  be  made  dependent  on  his  attitude 
to  this  supposed  founder  of  the  Christian  religion  ? 

At  the  base  of  all  the  deeper  religions  lies  the  idea  of 
a  suffering  god,  sacrificing  himself  for  humanity,  and 

1  S.  Eck,  Religion  und  Geschichte  (1907),  p.  14. 


306  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

obtaining  spiritual  healing  for  man  by  his  death  and  his 
subsequent  resurrection.  In  the  pagan  religions  this 
idea  is  conceived  naturalistically :  the  death  of  the  sun, 
the  annual  dying  of  nature,  the  happy  revival  of  its  forces 
in  spring,  and  the  victorious  conquering  of  the  power  of 
winter  by  the  new  sun — this  is  the  realistic  background 
of  the  tragic  myth  of  Osiris,  Attis,  Adonis,  Tammuz, 
Dionysos,  Balder,  and  similar  deities.  The  great  advance 
of  Christianity  beyond  these  nature-religions  is  that  it 
spiritualised  this  idea  by  applying  it  to  the  man  Jesus 
Christ,  blended  the  many  saviour-gods  in  the  idea  of  the 
one  god-man,  and  gave  it  the  most  plausible  form  by 
connecting  it  with  an  historical  reality.  But  this  stand- 
point is  not  yet  the  best.  The  historical  clothing  of  the 
Christian  idea  of  redemption  is  ruined  as  soon  as  it  is, 
as  in  our  time,  made  the  express  object  of  scientific  inquiry 
and  historical  criticism,  on  account  of  the  rise  of  historical 
science  and  the  stimulation  of  the  sense  of  reality.  The 
purely  historical  conception  of  Jesus  cannot  satisfy  the 
religious  consciousness  of  our  age.  It  owes  its  prestige 
in  reality  to  the  effects  of  a  way  of  thinking  that  is 
regarded  by  its  adherents  themselves  as  obsolete.  A 
single  historical  personality  can  no  longer  be  the  redeem- 
ing principle  of  a  humanity  that  has  not  merely  broken 
with  the  geocentric  and  anthropocentric  view  of  the  origin 
of  Christianity,  but  has  seen  through  the  superstitious 
nature  of  ecclesiastical  Christology.  What  was  once  the 
prerogative  of  Christianity — that  it  superseded  the  poly- 
theism of  pagan  antiquity,  and  conceived  the  idea  of  the 
divine  Saviour  in  the  singular  and  historically — is  to-day 
the  greatest  hindrance  to  faith.  Modern  humanity  has, 
therefore,  the  task  of  again  universalising  the  idea  of  divine 
redemption,  or  enlarging  the  idea  of  a  god-man,  which  is 
common  in  Christendom,  to  the  idea  of  a  god-humanity. 

With  this  belief  in  a  plurality  of  "  god-men,"  religious 
development  returns  in  a  certain  sense  to  pre-Christian 
religion  and  its  numerous  "  god-men,"  but  enriched  with 


THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS  307 

the  partial  truths  of  Christianity,  through  which  it  has 
passed,  filled  with  the  idea  of  the  one  reality  and  its 
spiritual  nature,  to  which  the  various  individuals  are 
related  only  as  modi,  phenomena,  or  revelations,  confiding 
in  the  divine  control  of  the  world,  and  therefore  in  its 
rationality  and  goodness,  in  spite  of  all  the  apparently 
accidental  obstacles  which  the  world-process  encounters 
here  and  there.  Thus  man  secures  a  faith  in  himself,  in 
the  divine  nature  of  his  being,  in  the  rationality  of  exist- 
ence ;  thus  he  is  placed  in  a  position  to  save  himself, 
without  a  mediator,  simply  on  account  of  his  own  divine 
nature.  Self-redemption  is  not  a  redemption  of  the  ego 
by  itself,  as  our  opponents  misrepresent,  but  of  the  ego 
by  the  self,  of  the  phenomenon  by  the  divine  fund  of  being 
in  man.  Christianity  recognises  only  one  redemption 
through  Christ ;  it  makes  the  possibility  of  redemption 
dependent  on  belief  in  the  reality  and  truth  of  the 
historical  god-man.  The  religion  of  the  future  will 
either  be  a  belief  in  the  divine  nature  of  the  self,  or  will 
be  nothing.  And  if  there  is  no  other  redemption  of  man 
than  redemption  by  himself,  by  the  spiritual  and  divine 
nature  of  the  self,  no  Christ  is  needed  for  it,  and  there  is 
no  ground  for  concern  that  religion  may  perish  with  the 
denial  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus. 

In  a  Monistic  religion,  which  alone  is  compatible  with 
modern  thought,  the  idea  of  a  religious  significance  of 
Christ  is  not  only  superfluous,  but  mischievous.  It  loads 
the  religious  consciousness  with  doubtful  historical  ballast ; 
it  grants  the  past  an  authority  over  the  religious  life  of 
the  present,  and  it  prevents  men  from  deducing  the  real 
consequences  of  their  Monistic  religious  principles.  Hence 
I  insist  that  the  belief  in  the  historical  reality  of  Jesus  is 
the  chief  obstacle  to  religious  progress ;  and  therefore  the 
question  of  his  historicity  is  not  a  purely  historical,  but 
also  a  philosophic-religious,  question. 

The  more  progressive  theologians  would  be  ready  to-day 
to  accept  this  Monistic  broadening  and  deepening  of 


308  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

religion  if  they  were  not  compelled  by  their  clerical  con- 
dition, and  the  connection  of  the  Church  with  the  State, 
to  adhere  to  Jesus  in  some  sense  or  other,  no  matter  how 
slender  it  be.  They  support  this  position  with  the  claim 
that  a  religion  without  Jesus  would  not  do  justice  to  the 
importance  of  the  great  personality  and  of  history  for 
religious  life.  In  reply  to  this  objection  we  hardly  need 
to  appeal  to  Hegel,  the  philosopher  of  historical  develop- 
ment, to  whom  this  high  appreciation  of  the  present 
above  history  may  be  traced,  as  well  as  this  vindication  of 
"  personalities  of  world-history."  The  great  personality 
has  clearly  a  value  even  in  our  own  view :  in  it  the  unity 
of  God  and  man,  the  God-humanity,  attains  a  clearer 
expression.  It  serves  as  proof  to  the  religious  conscious- 
ness that  God  raises  up  the  right  man  at  the  right  time. 
It  reveals  the  living  connection  of  the  common  individual 
life  with  the  universal  spiritual  life.  In  the  chain  of 
historical  events  the  pious  mind  finds  a  guarantee  of  a 
pervading  rational  control  and  a  purposive  development 
of  earthly  life,  however  obscure  the  paths  of  this  develop- 
ment may  be,  and  however  difficult  it  may  be  at  times  to 
recognise  the  sense  in  existence.  The  divinity  lives  in 
history,  and  reveals  itself  therein.  History  is,  in  union 
with  nature,  the  sole  place  of  divine  activity.  The 
divinity,  however,  does  not  chain  itself  to  history  in 
order  to  unite  past  and  future  to  a  single  historical 
event ;  but  one  continuous  stream  of  divine  activity  flows 
through  time.  Hence  it  cannot  wish  that  men  shall  be 
bound  up  with  some  such  single  event ;  in  virtue  of  its 
divine  character  the  detail  may  at  any  point  of  history  be 
raised  above  the  conditions  of  time  and  nature. 

To  bind  up  religion  with  history,  as  modern  theo- 
logians do,  and  to  represent  an  historical  religion  as  the 
need  of  modern  man,  is  no  proof  of  insight,  but  of  a 
determination  to  persuade  oneself  to  recognise  the 
Christian  religion  alone.1 

1  See  my  Die  Religion  als  Selbst-Bewtcsstsein  GotUs. 


APPENDIX 


IN  the  course  of  the  work  we  have  many  times  drawn 
attention  to  the  remarkable  details  which  Psalm  xxii  supplies 
in  connection  with  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus.  The  psalm  is  one 
of  those  that  have  presented  very  great  difficulties  to  inter- 
preters. It  is  obvious  that  it  deals  with  the  lament  of  one  who 
is  in  dire  straits.  Hitzig  connects  the  psalm  with  Jeremiah 
xxxvii,  11-21,  and  the  story  narrated  there  of  the  captivity  of 
the  prophet.1  According  to  Olshausen  the  situation  it  describes 
fits  best  with  the  Maccabaean  period,  and  it  pictures  the  prayers 
and  plaints  of  the  sufferers  according  to  the  experience  of  the 
poet  and  the  other  faithful.2  More  recent  scholars  despair  of 
determining  the  age,  and  would  see  in  the  words  of  the  psalm 
only  the  general  sufferings  and  laments  of  the  great  mass  of 
the  despised  and  maltreated  "  pious  or  quiet  of  the  land." 

Whatever  one  may  think,  the  enumeration  of  the  animals 
that  surround  the  sufferer  is  in  any  case  striking  and  curious. 
The  composition  and  peculiar  choice  of  surroundings  for  the 
ill-treated,  and  the  minute  description  of  his  sufferings  and  the 
threats  made  to  him,  suggest  that  we  have  here  a  very  unusual 
case.  The  original  Hebrew  text  seems  to  say  nothing  of  fetters 
on  the  sufferer.  In  verse  14,  however,  it  is  said :  "  All  my 
bones  are  out  of  joint";  and  verse  16  is  translated  in  the 
Septuagint :  "They  pierced  my  hands  and  my  feet";  and  the 
early  Christians,  who  applied  the  psalm  to  their  saviour,  had  in 
mind  a  crucifixion,  and,  like  Justin  and  Tertullian,  saw  in  the 
"  horns  of  the  unicorns  [wild  oxen]  "  (verse  21)  the  arms  of  the 
martyr's  stake. 

If  we  now  glance  at  the  globe  of  the  heavens,  at  the  spot 
where  Orion  is  found,  we  see  at  once  that  all  the  details  of  the 
psalm  agree  and  are  intelligible,  if  an  astral  interpretation  is 
put  on  it. 

1  Die  Psalmen  (1836),  p.  60.  2  Die  Psalmen  (1853),  p.  121. 

309 


310  APPENDIX 

On  the  "  world-tree,"  the  Milky  Way,  which  plays  the  part 
of  a  tree  elsewhere  in  the  astral  myth,  hangs  Orion  with  arms 
and  legs  outstretched  in  the  form  of  a  cross.1  Above  his  head 
he  is  threatened  by  the  Bull  with  gaping  jaws,  the  Hyades, 
which  are  in  the  corner  on  his  left ;  we  may  also  recall  the 
lion's  jaws  in  the  constellation  Leo,  which  is  distant  ninety 
degrees  from  the  Hyades,  and  is  therefore  astrally  related  to 
them.  Behind  Orion  are  the  "  wild  oxen,"  the  herd  of  re'ems, 
which  on  the  celestial  globe  take  the  form  of  the  Unicorn, 
which  seems  about  to  pierce  the  hanging  figure  with  its  horn. 
In  harmony  with  this  are  the  words  of  the  psalm  :  "  Many 
bulls  have  compassed  me  :  strong  bulls  of  Bashan  have  beset 
me  round  "  (verse  12). 

"  I  am  poured  out  like  water,"  says  the  sufferer.  Does  not 
the  river  Eridanus  flow  beneath  the  feet  of  Orion  ?  It  seems 
to  flow  from  his  raised  left  foot ;  and  the  Milky  Way  also  may 
be  taken  as  water.  See  also  Psalm  Ixix,  2  and  15. 

"  Dogs  have  compassed  me  "  (Sirius  and  Procyon). 

"  The  assembly  of  the  wicked  have  inclosed  me  " — the  Bulls, 
the  Dogs,  the  Hare,  the  Heavenly  Twins,  who  are  described 
as  "  wicked  "  (criminals,  robbers)  in  the  astral  myth.  (Cf. 
Gen.  xlix,  where  they  are  related  to  the  twins  Simeon  and  Levi 
and  are  called  "  bull- slayers,"  because  they  drive  the  Zodiacal 
bull  before  them  and  push  him  out  of  the  heavens.) 

"  Like  the  lion  are  my  hands  and  feet,"  the  original  Hebrew 
text  of  verse  16  continues.  The  phrase  has  hitherto  eluded 
explanation.  It  may  mean  that  the  "  wicked  "  surround  the 
hands  and  feet  of  the  sufferer  in  the  fashion  of  the  lion  (sicut 
leo),  as  is  usually  understood  by  interpreters.  But  the  words 
may  possibly  contain  a  cryptic  reference  to  the  constellation 
Leo  :  whether  because  the  chief  stars  of  that  constellation  are 
distributed  as  in  Orion,  and  represent  a  lying  Orion,  or  because 
of  the  astral  relation  of  Orion  to  the  Lion  which  we  have 
previously  mentioned,  or  with  reference  to  the  lion's-skin  which 
Orion  carries  on  his  left  arm  and  which  recalls  the  lion's-skin 
of  Hercules.  The  Septuagint  substituted  the  words  :  "  They 
pierced  my  hands  and  my  feet."  Now  the  hand  of  Orion 

1  Also  Job  xxxviii,  31.  Orion  is  represented  as  a  giant  fastened  to  the 
heavens  with  chains.  (Cf.  Jeremias,  Das  Alte  Testament  im  Lichte  des 
alien  Orients,  560.) 


APPENDIX  311 

which  carries  the  lion's  skin  goes  with  the  arrow  of  one  of  the 
Twins  (Castor),  piercing  the  hand ;  and  in  the  period  of 
Taurus  the  constellation  of  the  Arrow  is  in  opposition  to  the 
arrow  of  Castor,  the  arrow  rising  in  the  east  when  the  former 
sets  in  the  west. 

The  sword  in  verse  20  is  the  sword  of  Orion,  which  is  drawn 
up  against  his  body.  The  dogs  are  Sirius  and  Procyon  once 
more.  The  lion's  mouth  (verse  21)  refers  again  to  the  Hyades 
or  to  the  constellation  Leo,  which  seems  to  be  coming  on  from 
a  distance,  while  the  "  wild  oxen  "  indicate  the  herd  of  re' ems.1 

We  may  even  go  further,  and  explain  other  details  of  the 
psalm  with  reference  to  its  fundamentally  astral  character. 
Thus,  when  we  read  in  verse  17,  "  I  may  tell  all  my  bones,"  we 
recall  that  no  other  constellation  shows  as  plainly  as  Orion,  on 
account  of  the  number  and  distribution  of  its  stars,  the  shape 
of  a  human  being  with  extended  limbs.  At  the  same  time  the 
shape  may  be  regarded  as  a  cup,  with  the  three  stars  of  the  belt 
as  dice  in  it.  In  this  sense  we  may  read  verse  18  :  "  They  part 
my  garments  among  them,  and  cast  lots  upon  my  vesture." 
The  vesture  of  Orion  is  the  heavens,  which  are  often  conceived 
as  a  starry  mantle,"  and  seem  to  be  divided  among  the 
various  constellations.  Or  we  may  take  the  Milky  Way  as 
his  garment,  the  "  seamless  robe,"  because  it  runs  continuously 
across  the  sky,  which  is  divided  at  the  Twins  into  two  halves 
by  the  passage  of  the  sun. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  understand  the  real  meaning  of 
the  psalm.  The  constellation  Orion  is  in  astral  mythology  an 
astral  representative  both  of  the  sun  and  the  moon.2  In  it 


1  The  Septuagint  translates  re'ems  as  monokeros,  and  this  is  translated 
"unicorn"  in  the  German  [and  English]  versions;  in  point  of  fact,  our 
celestial  globes  have,  instead  of  the  "  wild  oxen,"  the  constellation  of  the 
"  Unicorn,"  the  remarkable  beast  of  which  Ktesias  (about  400  B.C.)  writes. 
This  must,  as  Eberhard  Schrader  has  shown,  be  due  to  a  misunderstanding, 
the  Greek  writer  having  mistaken  the  figure  of  a  buffalo  with  one  horn  on 
the  forehead  in  the  ruins  of  Persepolis  for  a  peculiar  animal,  whereas  the 
one  horn  is  really  due  to  the  inability  of  the  artists  of  that  people  to  draw 
with  perspective.     See  details  in  F.  Delitsch's  second  lecture  on  Babel  and 
Bible  (1904).     In  view  of  the  astral  significance  of  the  psalm,  Luther  was 
right  in  inserting  "unicorn,"  and  the  real  meaning  of  the  passage  is  lost 
when  people  learned  in  philology  insist  that  the  "  unicorn  "  was  really  a 
buffalo. 

2  Compare  the  identity  of  Orion  with  the  sun  and  moon-god  Osiris 
among  the  Egyptians.     Boll,  Sphaera,  1903,  p.  164. 


312  APPENDIX 

their  fate  is  symbolised  or  vicariously  represented.  Orion, 
says  Fuhrmann,  has  many  names  in  astral  mythology.  Like 
the  moon,  he  is  the  "many-shaped"  (Proteus),  giving  to  all 
the  gods  their  particular  harmonic  form,  and  astrology  sees 
the  most  diverse  forms  of  the  myth  in  the  constellation  Orion. 
Thus  we  have  already  recognised  in  it  John  the  Baptist  at 
the  Jordan,  about  whom  the  "  people  "  gather  (p.  192),  and  the 
water-wheel  (p.  211).  It  is  Noah  coming  with  his  animals  out 
of  the  ark  (Argo),  and  stretching  his  hands  gratefully  to  heaven, 
while  the  Milky  Way  (rainbow)  arches  over  the  earth  as  a 
sign  of  the  new  covenant  (year).  It  is  Phaeton  sinking  with 
uplifted  arms  in  the  waters  of  Eridanus,  the  Hyades  and 
Pleiades  hastening  in  flight  at  his  fall,  and  lamenting  his  death, 
while  his  "  chariot "  runs,  wheelless  and  uncontrolled,  round 
the  pole  of  the  heavens.  It  is  Jason  landing  in  Colchis  with 
the  Argo,  fighting  the  bronze  oxen  of  -ZEtes  and  hurrying  after 
the  Earn  ("golden  fleece  "—the  sun  at  the  vernal  point).  It 
is  Prometheus  fastened  cross-wise  to  the  rocks.  It  is  also 
Mithra  fighting  the  Bull,  which  the  Scorpion  makes  harmless 
by  biting  its  organs  of  generation,  as  the  Bull  disappears  when 
the  sun  enters  the  sign  of  the  Scorpion. 

In  these  cases  there  is  question  of  the  sun  and  the  moon 
when  they  are  distressed  and  need  help ;  that  is  to  say,  of  the 
lowest  altitude  of  the  sun  during  the  year,  or  of  the  moon 
before  its  temporary  disappearance. 

The  sun  is  far  away ;  it  is  in  the  winter  half  of  the  ecliptic. 
Orion  seems  to  cry  for  help  with  raised  arms  :  "  My  God,  my 
God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  Why  art  thou  so  far  from 
helping  me,  and  from  the  words  of  my  roaring  ?  O  my  God, 
I  cry  in  the  daytime,  but  thou  hearest  not ;  and  in  the  night 
season,  and  am  not  silent.  But  thou  art  holy,  0  thou  that 
inhabitest  the  praises  of  Israel.  Our  fathers  trusted  in  thee : 
they  trusted,  and  thou  didst  deliver  them.  They  cried  unto 
thee,  and  were  delivered :  they  trusted  in  thee,  and  were  not 
confounded.  But  I  am  a  worm,  and  no  man."  Orion,  the 
most  human-looking  of  all  the  constellations,  is  the  sun,  which 
in  the  winter-time,  pale  and  despised,  creeps  over  the  earth 
like  a  worm.1  "  A  reproach  of  men  and  despised  of  the  people. 

1  It  has  also  been  pointed  out  that  the  Milky  Way,  in  which  Orion  is, 


APPENDIX  313 

All  they  that  see  me  laugh  me  to  scorn ;  they  shoot  out  the 
lip,  they  shake  the  head,  saying,  He  trusted  on  the  Lord  that 
he  would  deliver  him  ;  let  him  deliver  him,  seeing  he  delighted 
in  him."  Thus  also  it  is  said  of  the  scoffing  *'  wicked  " :  "  They 
gaze  on  me,  and  show  their  pleasure  in  me."  In  point  of  fact, 
they  look  down  on  Orion  from  the  higher  point  of  the  ecliptic.1 

Why  should  not  the  Twins  at  the  highest  point  of  the 
ecliptic  "  mock  "  the  sun,  as  it  moves  heavy  and  dull  on  the 
lowest  stretch  of  its  annual  path?  Compare  also  Psalm 
Ixix,  7-16.2  Now  it  crosses  the  equator,  and  rises  higher  and 
higher.  The  situation  changes.  God  has  heard  the  cry  of 
the  abandoned.  The  better  season  begins :  "  The  meek  shall 
eat  and  be  satisfied."  In  fervent  strains  of  praise  the  delivered 
sings,  amid  the  chorus  of  stars  ("in  the  great  congregation"), 
the  grace  of  the  Lord.  Jahveh  resumes  the  lordship  of  the 
world,  and  all  peoples  gladly  praise  his  name.8 

Thus  the  interaction  of  earth  and  heaven,  man  and  God, 
which  was  so  familiar  to  the  whole  of  antiquity,  is  reflected 
in  the  heavens,  both  the  enchained  and  enfeebled  sun  (moon) 
and  Orion  corresponding  to  "  the  son  of  man,"  who  cries  for 
help  against  the  dangers  of  the  winter  that  threaten  him. 
From  this  point  of  view  the  twenty-second  psalm  may,  as  I 


stretches  like  a  worm  across  the  sky  when  Orion  sets  in  the  beginning  of 
winter.  In  the  Babylonian  myth  the  Milky  Way  was  a  worm  (Tiamat), 
which  the  sun  (Marduk)  split  into  two  halves. 

1  The  Twins  are  the  little  boys  who  in  2  Kings  ii,  23,  scoffed  at  Elisha, 
when  he  had  divided  the  "  Jordan  "  with  the  "  mantle  "  of  Elijah,  crossed  it 
dry-shod,  reached  the  "city  of  the  moon,"  Jericho,  at  the  "source  of  the 
waters"  (watery  region  of  winter,  the  vessel  of  Aquarius),  and  is  now 
rising  again.     They  cry  to  him:  "Go  up,  thou  bald  head,"  because  the 
sun  has  lost  its  hair  at  the  lowest  part  of  its  path  (Samson  and  Hercules, 
see  p.  165).     In  this  connection  also  we  must  take  the  "fifty  men"  who 
sought  the  vanished  Elijah  (Helios)  in  vain  for  three  days  (months),  and 
the  "miscarriage"  that  is  supposed  to  cause  the  water  of  the  city.     The 
men  refer  to  the  weeks  of  the  year  (compare  the  fifty  sons  of  Danaus,  the 
waterman),  and  the  latter  to  the  sterile  season  which  is  ended  by  the  sun. 

2  It  is  admitted  that  verse  21  ("  They  gave  me  gall  for  my  meat,  and  in 
my  thirst  they  gave  me  vinegar  to  drink  ")  has  been  taken  literally  from 
the  psalm  and  applied  to  tke  crucifixion  of  Jesus,  like  the  second  verse  of 
the  twenty-second  psalm.     In  view  of  the  affinity  of  the  psalms  this  is  a 
fresh  proof  that  the  sentence,  "My  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?" 
is  not  historical.     (See  also  Ixix,  9.) 

*  I  would  ask  the  reader  not  to  pass  judgment  on  all  this  until  he  has 
studied  the  constellations.  There  are  too  many  who  shrug  their  shoulders 
at  astral  mythology  and  never  glance  at  the  heavens  or  have  the  least 
idea  about  the  corresponding  speculations  of  the  ancients. 


314  APPENDIX 

pointed  out  in  The  Christ-Myth,  be  a  song  of  the  cult  to  the 
suffering  and  rising  son-god — Gressman  sees  a  similar  song  in 
the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah — whether  the  movements 
described  are  taken  to  be  purely  celestial  or  whether  they  had 
an  earthly  counterpart  in  a  corresponding  cult-action  after  the 
manner  of  the  festivals  of  Attis,  Tammuz,  Adonis,  Osiris,  etc. 
If  we  substitute  for  the  "crucified"  Orion  of  the  twenty- 
second  psalm  the  two  other  important  celestial  crosses — the 
vernal  cross  with  the  Earn  (Lamb)  and  the  autumnal  cross 
with  the  Gup  (skull)  below  it,  the  Virgin,  Berenice's  Hair 
(megaddela=M.&Yy  Magdalene),  etc. — we  have  all  the  astral 
elements  of  what  Niemojewski  calls  the  "  astral  via  dolorosa  " 
(p.  413).  May  we  suppose,  in  fine,  that  Orion  itself  plays  the 
part  of  the  crucified  Saviour  ?  In  that  case  the  (weeping) 
women  at  the  cross  are  represented  by  the  Pleiades  (the  "  rain- 
sisters"),  one  of  which  bears  the  name  of  Maja  (Maria).  The 
Pleiades  also  are  hair-dressers  (megaddela),  as  they  are  repre- 
sented in  medieval  manuscripts  on  the  basis  of  an  old  tradition,1 
and  they  culminate  when  Berenice's  Hair  rises  above  the 
eastern  horizon.  Electra  is  supposed  to  be  the  centre  of  the 
Pleiades.  She  is  the  mother  of  Jasios  (Jesus),  and  is  repre- 
sented as  a  mourner  with  a  cloth  over  her  head,  just  in  the 
same  way  as  the  Christian  Mary.  But  as  Jasios  was  also 
regarded,  according  to  another  genealogy,  as  the  son  of  Maja, 
the  mourning  Pleiad  may  also  stand  for  her.  As  is  known,  the 
mother  of  Jesus  also  is  a  dove  (peleids,  Pleiad)  in  the  early 
Christian  conception. 

According  to  Niemojewski,  the  cup  (gulguleth= skull) 
represents  the  heavenly  Golgotha.  But  we  may  refer  it  to 
the  skull  of  the  Bull  and  the  head  of  Medusa,  and  regard  "  the 
place  of  skulls  "  as  the  region  of  the  heavens  where  Orion  is 
found.  On  this  supposition  the  two  evil-doers  are  recognised  in 
the  Twins,  which  wehave  already  ascertained  to  be  the  astral 
criminals.  Castor  is  regarded  as  evil  on  account  of  his  relation 
to  winter,  and  Pollux  good  on  account  of  his  relation  to 
summer.  Niemojewski  sees  the  two  evil-doers  in  the  Dogs 
(Sirius  and  Procyon).  The  difference  is  not  great,  as  the  Dogs 


1  Boll,   Spcera,  p.  380.     Compare    the    drawing    in    Thiele's  Antike 
Himmelsbilder  (1898),  p.  112. 


APPENDIX  315 

culminate  at  the  same  time  as  the  Twins,  and  may  therefore 
be  substituted  for  them. 

Here  we  have  firm  "ground  on  which  to  establish  the  originally 
astral  and  mythical  character  of  the  remainder  of  the  story  of 
Jesus,  and  we  seem  to  have  a  very  strong  proof  that  there  was 
a  cult  of  "  the  crucified  "  before  the  time  of  Jesus,  and  that  the 
nucleus  of  the  figure  of  Jesus  is  in  reality  purely  astral. 

All  the  oriental  religions,  including  Judaism,  are  essentially 
astral  religions.  We  have  previously  (p.  223)  shown  that 
Revelation  is  a  Jewish-Gnostic  work,  the  Jesus  of  which  is 
more  primitive  than  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels.  But  Revelation 
is  entirely  and  certainly  of  an  astral  character.  It  is  a  further 
proof  that  Christianity  is  no  exception  to  the  rule. 


INDEX 


ABQAR,  letter  of  Christ  to,  1 
Acts  of  Peter,  30,  35 
Acts  of  Pilate,  the,  1 
Adonis,  67,  163,  209,  214 
Akiba,  E.,  15,  16 
Ambrosian  Choral,  190 
Annas,  158,  212 
Apollonius  of  Tyana,  177 
Apostolic  Fathers,  132 
Aquarius,  190,  211 
Asclepios,  78,  196,  199 
Attis,  67,  163 
Augustus,  164,  213 

BASILIDES,  112 

Bethany,  144 

Bracciolini,  Poggio,  46,  47 

Brahma,  22 

Brothers  of  Jesus,  10,  84-91,  146 

Bull,  the,  310 

CAIAPHAS,  158, 212 
Capernaum,  212 
Celsus,  57 

Children,  love  of,  259 
Chrestiani,  49,  50,  52 
Chrestus,  19,  49,  53 
Christianity,  beginning  of,  233-5 
Christus,  the  name,  43 
Clement  of  Rome,  27,  29,  31,  72 
Cluvius  Rufus,  23,  24 
Crucifixion,  date  of  the,  215 

DAN  AIDS,  29,  30 

Dio  Cassius,  31,  42 
Dionysios  of  Corinth,  32 
Dionysos,  67 
Divorce,  236 

EASTER-STORY,  the,  163, 164, 166 

Ebionite  gospel,  129 

Elias,  78 

Emmanuel,  the  name,  195 

Enemies,  love  of,  266-70 

Epiphanius,  196,  217,  218 

Eridanus,  191,  192,  211,  212,  310 


Essenes,  the,  2,  218,  220 
Ethic  of  Christ,  94-7,  258-62 
Eusebius,  9,  32,  33,  87,  125 

FISHES,  190,  211 
Flavius  Subrius,  42 
Frederick  the  Great,  130,  133 

GADARENE  swine,  the,  140, 178 

Galilee,  209 

Gamaliel,  R.,  14 

Genesareth,  Sea  of,  212 

Gethsemane,  208-9 

Gibbon, 25 

Gnostics,  the,  55,  67,  68,  107,  111- 

17,  216, 227 
Golgotha,  209 

Gospels,  chronology  of  the,  212 
style  of  the,  156-7, 160 

HADRIAN,  52 

Hannas,  109 

Heavenly  Twins,  159,  310,  311,  314 

Hegel,  302 

Hegesippus,  27,  32,  87 

Heracles,  67,  136,  292 

Hermes  Necropompos,  192,  196 

Psychopompos,  191 

Herod,  158 

Herod  Antipas,  193 

Herodotus,  191 

Hosea,  198 

Hyades,  the,  203,  211,  310 

IDEAS  and  realities,  304-6 

Isaiah,  69,  72,  169,   174,  175,  184, 

189,  241,  246,  258,  296 
Isis,  50,  51 

JAIRUS,  daughter  of,  140 

James,  the  Apostle,  89,  90 

James,  Epistle  of,  183 

Jasios  (see  Jason) 

Jason,  67,  164, 191, 196,  197, 312 

Jerusalem,  205-9 

destruction  of,  243,  247 


317 


318 


INDEX 


Jessaeans  (see  Jessenes) 
Jessenes,  the,  2,  42,  44,  217 
Jesus,  birth  of,  161 

death  of,  159, 164,  213 

the  name,  195 

son  of  Ananus,  215,  247 

Jews  at  Rome,  the,  44,  51 

—  and  Christians,  6,  12,  40,  108, 

231 

Job, 179 

Job's  Testament,  181 
John  the  Baptist,  183-194 
Jonah, 165 
Jordan,  the,  191,  312 
Joseph,  214 

Josephus,  Flavius,  3-10 
Joshua,    164,    165,    191,    195,    197, 

199,  218,  222,  226 
Judas  the  Betrayer,  83 

the  Gaulonite,  5 

Julius,  197 
Justin,  198 
Justus  of  Tiberias,  2 

KANT,  298,  299 
Krishna,  214 

LAST  SUPPER,  the,  80-4 
Leo  X.,  130 
Lessing,  298 
Longinus,  55 
Lysanias,  158 

MAIA,  164, 197 

Marcion,  112 

Marcus  Aurelius,  19,  32 

Marduk,  67 

Mark,  123, 124,  125 

Martha,  144 

Martyrs,  number  of  the,  40 

Mary,  86,  90,  91,  164,  314 

Matthew,  127 

Matthew,  original  gospel  of,  13,  14 

Melito  of  Sardis,  32 

Messiah,  the  name,  195 

Milky  Way,  the,  191,  192,  211,  300 

Miracles  of    Jesus,    137-40,  175-8. 

218 

Mithraism,  294 
Monism,  303,  307 
Moses,  78,  198 

NAASSENES,  220,  281 

Nasiraeans,  204 

Nave,  197,  198 

Nazarenes,  the,  2,  42,  44,  201-4,  217 

Nazareth,  200-5,  211 

Nazorseans  (see  Nazarenes) 


Neighbour,  love  of,  266-70 
Neronian  persecution,  the,  21-48 

CANNES,  190,  191 
Ophites,  220,  221 
Origen,  9,  35 
Orion,  192,  211,  309-13 
Orosius,  P.,  37 
Osiris,  67,  163 

PALESTINE,  159 

Papias,  123,  124,  126,  127 

Parables,  the,  of  Jesus,  280-8 

Paul,  conversion  of,  114-16 

Paul,  death  of,  28-9 

Paul,  historicity  of,  61-5 

Paul  not  a  Jew,  117-19 

Paul,  style  of,  102,  103 

Paul,  theology  of,  65 

Paul,  vision  of,  78 

Pauline    Epistles,   the,   62-4,    101, 

102-21 

Pentecost,  166 
Perseus,  165 

Personality  in  history,  293 
Peter,  124,  125 
Peter,  death  of,  28-9 
Pharisees,  the,  230,  235-45,  253-4 
Philo,  2,  67,  225 
Phoenix,  the,  213,  214 
Photius,  3 

Pilate,  4,  22,  55,  158 
Plato,  170 
Pliny,  18-19,  26 
Porphyry,  18,  57 
Pre-Christian  Jesus,  200,  216-28 
Presbyter  Johannes,  124 
Primitive  Mark,  128 
Primitive  Matthew,  13,  14 
Procyon,  311 

RABBIS,  the,  11 
Resurrection,  the,  77-80,  163-6 
Revelation,  223-5 

SABBATH,  the,  236,  254 

Sadducees,  the,  230,  255 

Samaritans,  the,  270,  288 

Saviour,  expectation  of,  67,  68,  162 

Schmiedel's  Main  Pillars,  144-55 

Scribes,  the,  235-45 

Serapis,  50,  52,  78 

Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the,  271-5 

Shakespeare,  159 

Sibylline  Oracles,  34,  222 

Simon  the  Magician,  30,  54 

Sirius,  311 

Socrates,  historicity  of,  133 


INDEX 


319 


Solomon,  219 
Stoics,  the,  269 
Suetonius,  19-20,  49 
Sulpicius  Severus,  43,  45 

TACITUS,  20-56 

manuscripts  of,  47,  49 

Talmud,  the,  10-17 

Talmud   (quoted),   92,   95,   96,  97, 

236,  237,  258,  259,  262,  265,  268, 

269,  272-4,  278,  281-7 
Tammuz,  232 
Teaching  of    the  Twelve   Apostles, 

223,  252 
Tertullian,  33 
Therapeuts,  218,  220,  225 
Theudas,  5 
Tiberius,  letter  to,  1 


Tongues,  gift  of,  107-8 
Trajan,  18 
Trypho,  16 

UNIQUENESS  of  Jesus,  142-4 

VALENTINE,  112 
Vopiscus,  FL,  51 

WATER-WHEEL,  the,  211 
Wisdom,  69,  170,  173 
Words  of  the   Lord,  the,  91,   127, 
249-53 

XIPHILINUS,  42 
ZECHARIAH,  238 


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